The Play's the Thing
by Linnie McCary
Summary: The Winchesters discover some very real evil in the makebelieve world of theater. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer**: "Supernatural" is not mine. This was written completely for fun. _

_**A/N**: The rating is primarily for language, but Sam has an experience that's, well, carnal. Sort of. It's not hugely graphic, but….I'll warn you again before it comes up. There is neither slash nor Wincest, and this is not a deathfic._

_Werewolves get a brief mention here, apropos of pretty much nothing, and I'm sure a certain recent "Supernatural" episode changed the concept of werewolves for many of us. Despite that, I decided not to tamper with mine—I left it in the story, and will just say that it has nothing to do with that certain episode. Frankly, it's just a tiny convenience, here. I needed a monster that people who are different from you and me—you know, the ones who don't eat, breathe and sleep monsters—I needed one that they'd recognize._

_Many thanks to Sera and Tails for our crazed, exuberant rant-and-rave fests, which I completely adore! You two are aces and lunatics, which is an awesome combination!_

_There are seven chapters, and updates will be posted regularly, barring any computer catastrophe. I wrote this story for me, but hope that you might enjoy it, too. Please be sure to let me know, one way or the other._

-:- -:- -:-

**The Play's the Thing**

_The cast had taken their bows before an enthusiastic audience, which may not have been sold out, but the new theater was huge and Burlberg was a small town, after all, its residents mostly farmers and merchants, so one could not discount the fact that they were on their feet and clapping. Clapping loudly. It was opening night, the theater was beautiful, the costumes pretty, the actors had remembered virtually all of their lines, and wasn't it just a little bit like heaven to know all those people were applauding you? Luanne and Jerry had lingered backstage with the rest of the cast, stealing glances at one another as flocks of well-wishers congratulated them, congratulated everyone_—big-time Chicago thee-ater right here in little Burlberg!, _and_ wasn't it about time we had something modern like this, since it's 1927, after all? _Luanne had blushed when Jerry clandestinely winked at her, knowing they were fated to be lovers in real-life just like they were in this play. Too bad Stan had to ruin everything, looking like thunderclouds whenever he saw the two of them together. Wasn't like he'd ever had a chance, or like she'd led him on or anything—no, no, and she hadn't meant to be rude to him, either. Just needed him to understand that he was way too old for her, and there was no hope for Luanne-and-Stan (she giggled at the rhyme, then giggled again just because she was young and giddy and in love)—no hope for Stan-the-old-man, not with Luanne, because now there was Jerry, who was handsome and sweet and strong and talented and her own age. And had she said handsome? Jerry, who this very minute was talking with May Freeman, and if he thought Luanne was going to sit idly by and let him flirt with that hussy, then he had another think coming!_

_But Jerry wasn't interested in anyone but Luanne, and so they had finally stolen off to the wardrobe closet together as the rest of the cast and the crew and the crowd headed for Mr. Palmer's big house just north of town, headed for the opening-night party and one roaring good time because Palmer was the wealthiest man in five counties and he knew how to throw a fine party even if he was a banker. Heck, the man was a playwright, too, and you couldn't possibly be stuffy and an artiste at the same time! _

_There had been an awkward moment as the crush of people thinned, when Stan had bumped into Jerry, bumped him hard, almost knocked him off his feet and Jerry's fists had clenched before he thought better of things. Stan had thirty pounds and several inches on him, and if Jerry's lip was swollen or his nose broken, then kissing Luanne for real instead of for play-acting was going to be painful instead of wonderful, so Jerry had given old Stan the fisheye and let the tense moment pass. _

_But now the theater was empty, no one left but the two of them in the dark confines of the wardrobe closet, Luanne still giggling and Jerry grinning from ear to ear, so pleased to be squiring this girl, so pleased that this theater had been built and Mr. Palmer had written this play and that Jerry and Luanne had been brought together by fate to play two young people falling in love. Their first real kiss was made simpler by the fact that they'd been rehearsing for weeks, pretend-kissing on stage every night as Isabel and Lionel, getting over the awkwardness of kissing a stranger in front of other people, practicing kissing so it looked and felt natural, when neither one of them had had much experience with it at all, not in their real lives. So everything was that much nicer now, because now the kissing was real. Tender lips met tender lips, and then there were murmury coos of sweet nothings and rustles and laughs and little whispery sighs, and they never heard the fire's crackle until the heat in the closet became impossible to miss, and the door—oh, my God, the door wouldn't open--Jerry, please open the door! Open it, now! But he couldn't do it, no matter he was an Iowa farmboy born and bred, couldn't budge the thing, and the coos and whispers became anguished screams and curses among the flames, and within a few horrific moments, the young lovers were dead, and it wasn't at all romantic._

-:- -:- -:-

The Impala was humming smoothly along an old truck road in north-central Missouri, speckled by the rain that had fallen intermittently since they'd left Kansas City that morning. The Winchester brothers had just finished three days of R&R following a surprisingly eventful werewolf hunt, so the long scratches down Sam's chest had scabbed over nicely; and while Dean's cracked rib still made him flinch sometimes, when he moved wrong and Sam wasn't looking, his black eye was mostly green and yellow now. The sun was at least temporarily out, they had a good breakfast in their bellies, and Zeppelin thumped heavily on the car stereo. Sam had been cruising the Internet while Dean crooned quietly to himself.

"Dean, I think I've got something here."

"So soon?" The older Winchester grimaced in mock disappointment. "Man, whoever figured Missouri for a hotbed of supernatural activity?"

Sam shook his head. "This is in Iowa, actually—in Burlberg. It's a small town just a couple hundred miles from here. Apparently, they have a haunted theater."

"What, spirit's possessed the popcorn machine?" Dean cast Sam an inquiring look. "Ghost projectionist keeps showing old black and white movies instead of Drew Barrymore's latest?"

"It's not that kind of theater—it's the kind where they do stage performances. You know, plays and musicals and stuff."

Dean's expression soured. "Oh, God, not _actors_. Dude, those people are all friggin' weird!"

Grinning, Sam adjusted his long legs in the passenger-side foot-well. "As I recall, you didn't think that actress in Atlanta was so weird."

"That's true," his brother admitted, running his tongue along his lower lip at the memory. "She was more kinky than weird. Oh, good times in Atlanta, Sammy! But I didn't know she was an actress when I met her, or I might have had second thoughts."

Sam rolled his eyes, adjusted the screen on his laptop as a curve in the road brought the hazy sunlight in at a different angle. "We both know it wasn't your brain that did your thinking in Atlanta, Dean. Now listen to this. 'Palmer Theater Haunted by Past. A series of unexplained events has caused consternation among cast and crew'—huh, this reporter sure likes alliteration—'among cast and crew of 'Rochester Romp,' which opens next week in the newly refurbished Palmer Theater. Director Daniel R. Jones said that several of his actors have reported mysterious cold spots in their dressing rooms, and a brand new light-board repeatedly shorts out, although technicians have been unable to find anything wrong with it.'"

"Oh, come on," Dean said skeptically. "They've had some recent construction—could be they just had a crappy contractor. How's that for alliteration?"

Sam shot his brother a look, noted the smug expression on Dean's face, snorted a laugh. "And you're calling _actors_ weird. Dean, you know remodeling can stir up old energies. Anyway, the article says that the director called in a local psychic, who told them that three spirits haunt the theater. Let's see…." Sam scrolled through the article again, refreshing his memory, sharing the key details aloud. "The Palmer Theater was originally built in 1927 by town bigwig Chauncey Palmer. It was only used for one performance—the backstage inexplicably caught fire on opening night, and two of the actors were killed when they were trapped in the theater. Stagehand Stanley Williamson went missing after the fire, and police decided that he had torched the place for some unknown reason, then left town. They quit trying to find him after a couple of years."

Dean sniffed and shifted in his seat, working not to wince as his rib protested. "Ain't exactly screaming to me that this is our kind of gig, Sam."

"It gets better. The theater was hardly used for decades after the fire, but when the renovation was done last year, construction workers opened a wall in the old backstage area and found a skeleton. Guess whose?"

"Stan the Stagehand." Dean was suddenly a little more interested.

"Bingo. They think he died from smoke inhalation the night the theater burned. Now his family is saying that that's proof he never started the fire, but got trapped inside, just like the two actors. So, three deaths—psychic says three spirits. And, Dean, here's the weird thing. Chauncey Palmer, the guy who built the theater, also wrote that play they were doing back in 1927. It's his granddaughter, Sharon Palmer, who renovated the building, _and_ she's producing the play that opens next week." Sam paused, and Dean looked over at him curiously, recognizing his little brother's tell when he thought he held a winning hand at the poker table.

"And?"

"And it's the same play they were doing when the theater burned."

-:- -:- -:-

Burlberg was completely typical of the small towns of southern Iowa—most of Iowa, for that matter, and the surrounding Midwestern states. The brothers had driven for several hours to reach it, traveling along the old highway which passed through fields dotted by farm houses and barns and silos. The road widened occasionally for roadside produce stands advertising plenty of fresh corn, and finally intersected with another old truck route in the center of Burlberg, at one of the town's three traffic lights. A couple of signs posted by the local Kiwanis and Elks had welcomed the Winchesters to Burlberg ("_We put the heart in the Heartland!"_), urging them to obey the speed limit and to pray for the country. There were plenty of churches, almost as many bars, two elementary schools and one high school, three banks, a drugstore, four mom-and-pop groceries, at least one diner, a garage and several real estate offices—all the regular trappings of middle America.

The Palmer Theater was a stately granite building which firmly anchored the south side of Main Street between Elm and Finch, next door to Suzie's Dress Shop and just across the alley from the Yolks on Us Café, directly opposite the South Central Iowa Merchants Bank & Farm Trust. The theater marquee proudly announced "Opening Soon! Burlberg Players Present 'Rochester Romp.' Reserve Your Tickets in Advance. " Dean pulled the Impala into a diagonal parking space directly in front of the theater, took in a deep breath and said, "This one's all yours, Sammy. You know I don't speak the language."

Amateur publicity photos for the upcoming production were artistically arranged in display cases surrounding the art deco-style admission booth, and the Winchesters surveyed them briefly. Judging from the costumes, 'Rochester Romp' appeared to be a period piece from the 1920's; judging from the actors' various poses, it was either a light comedy or a very odd murder mystery. Possibly both.

"I'll bet nobody gets naked in this play," was Dean's only comment, and Sam didn't bother to respond.

The center door was ajar, and the brothers entered the lushly carpeted lobby, again done in the art-deco style, lit by daylight and period wall sconces and a massive chandelier. Potted ferns dangled from graceful hangers, adorned corners in large brass planters. To the right were the men's and ladies' rooms; to the left, a small refreshment area. Two curtained doorways on either side led into the theater itself, and the brothers could hear voices coming from within.

"Alexander! What on earth has become of the book I was just reading?" a woman's voice inquired loudly, accent wavering somewhere between British and upper-class Philadelphian.

A man's voice boomed in response, distinctly British, at least on a solid eighty percent of the words. "Why, I don't know, Penelope, darling. It was here just a moment ago. I saw it on the chair, right where you left it."

"Well, someone's moved it, because it isn't there any more," the woman replied.

"Kill me now," Dean muttered, and Sam drew in a long-suffering breath.

The Winchesters pushed through the right-hand curtain to find themselves twenty rows back from a spacious proscenium stage decorated with a couch, several arm chairs, a desk, a bookcase, a fireplace, and various other furniture pieces suggesting the living room of a well-appointed house from the 1920's. There were three doors in the back and side walls of the set, plus an unadorned window on the left which currently revealed the series of ropes and cables used to open and close the plush red velvet stage curtains.

An auburn-haired woman, probably in her late forties and wearing a flowing blue dress with a deep neckline, sat on the couch at center-stage, while a shortish man of about the same age stood behind her, just to her left, holding an empty brandy snifter, dressed more casually in slacks and a polo shirt. The French doors in the set's back wall opened inward as an attractive young couple in their early or mid-twenties stepped inside, both wearing jeans and t-shirts, his sporting the word "Wicked" across the front.

"Oh, Mother, we know who took your book," the blonde girl said, her voice chirping innocently, and the boy nodded with vigor.

"Yes, Mrs. Robinson. The butler did it!"

Both of their accents were decidedly Midwestern.

"—And the audience goes 'ha ha ha,' and that's the end of scene two." A tall, dark-haired man in his thirties stood up in the middle of the theater, where he'd been sitting with two women, one older and one younger, the three of them whispering together, the younger woman taking notes. "Christopher and Geneva, you've got to make that entrance right at the end of Zandra's line. Pick up that cue, please."

"Sorry, Daniel," the boy called. "The doorknob stuck, and I couldn't get it open."

"So that would be the director," Sam murmured to Dean, indicating the tall man with a thrust of his chin. "Daniel Jones."

The director turned slightly to the young woman sitting beside him. "Hallie, see that that door gets taken care of, would you? Zandra, the blue dress is marvelous, if not precisely period—you're wearing silver, yes?"

On the couch, the auburn-haired woman held up her left hand. "My wedding ring, darling," she announced, "and I have a wonderful brooch that I intend to use, since one can never be too careful!"

Dean gave Sam a 'what-the-hell?' look, and Sam shrugged.

"Superstition, I think," the younger Winchester said in a whisper. "Blue's supposed to be an unlucky color for actors. Maybe silver counteracts it."

"Friggin' theater people," Dean muttered.

"All right, my love, why don't you change out of your costume so Hallie can hem it tonight," the director continued, and the woman on the sofa stood gracefully and disappeared into the left-side wings.

"Daniel? When am I going to have something real for the brandy?" The man in the polo shirt raised his empty snifter high. "You know it helps to have all the props as early as possible, and we open next week."

"You're right, Randall—Hallie will be sure to have that ready for rehearsal tomorrow."

Hallie was scribbling furiously in her notebook as Daniel leaned down to examine something she had written. "No, Hallie, I said I want them entering from the stage-left door," he corrected her, indicating a spot on the paper before straightening again and raising his voice. "Okay, where are Philip and Carl? Gentlemen, could I have you on stage, please?"

Two more actors appeared from the darkness off stage, one in his forties and one closer to seventy, when the blonde girl shaded her eyes with her hands and looked out over the rows of seats at the Winchesters as they stood in the theater aisle.

"Daniel, I think we have company," she called, pointing with a languid wave of her hand.

Daniel turned to look at them in surprise, as did the two women seated beside him. The older woman got to her feet.

"May I help you?" she asked. "I'm sorry, gentlemen, this is a closed rehearsal. We're not ready for an audience yet."

Dean crammed his hands in his jacket pockets, his impatience not quite disguised as he bounced a little on the balls of his feet. He and Sam assumed roles all the time, pretended to be things they weren't—federal agents, college students, talent scouts, doctors—but they were hunters, and it was all part of the job. But _actors_—hell, God only knew why _they_ did what they did, dressing up, painting their faces, playing make-believe in front of a lot of people on purpose, for fun. Freaks of nature, the whole bunch of them. True to his word, Dean turned to Sam, pointedly yielding the floor to his brother.

Sam took a deep breath, donned his earnest choirboy smile and turned up the charm. "Hi—uh, no, we know you're still in rehearsal. I'm Sam, this is Dean. We're here representing _Midwest On Stage_, an arts journal out of Milwaukee." He held up a notepad, waved it at the members of the theater company briefly. "Is Ms. Palmer here, the producer? She should be expecting us—we have an appointment for an interview this afternoon, for this quarter's issue."

"I'm Sharon Palmer." The older woman was probably pushing fifty, trim and businesslike, wearing a navy suit and pumps, her dark hair cut short. "I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with your publication, and I don't remember anyone asking for an interview."

Her tone left no doubt that her apology was sincere, and Sam suspected she would leap at any chance to promote her show and her theater, especially in a regional magazine. He moved down the aisle, Dean ambling along on his heels, as she came over to greet them. Sam shook her hand cordially and Dean flashed a smile that never reached his eyes.

The young woman had also stood, trailing after the Palmer woman and the director. Dean appraised her dispassionately—close to Sam's age, brownish long hair and plain features, not unattractive, dressed in jeans and a baggy gold sweatshirt that did nothing for her figure, with the University of Iowa's Hawkeye mascot on the front. She clutched her notebook to her chest timidly, edging closer to the director when she realized Dean was giving her the once-over.

"This will be our first issue," Sam told Sharon Palmer, ignoring his brother's aloofness and settling easily into his story, although he had concocted it on the fly. "We're trying to cover the smaller or newer venues, like yours—which is beautiful, by the way—and we'd read about the revival you're doing of your grandfather's play. Seemed exactly like what we're looking for, for our premiere publication. I'm sorry about the interview—I don't know what happened."

"It's no problem," Sharon assured him. "We'd love the publicity. Let me introduce our very talented director, Daniel Jones; and our assistant director and stage manager, Hallie Fontana."

Sam shook hands all around while Dean just nodded his greeting, keeping his hands in his pockets. By this time, the cast had also gathered around them, requiring more introductions, which Daniel handled with such rapidity that Dean didn't even try to keep track of which names belonged to the actors, and which belonged to the characters they portrayed. It was enough to know that there were four men and two women—the hot blonde and the older one off changing her clothes somewhere—in addition to the producer, the director, and the stage manager chick. Sam could track the details.

"—plays Mr. Robinson's business partner, Major Brickley. Philip's actually the best doctor in Burlberg! Christopher here plays our young male love interest, Lionel, of course; and _this_ is Geneva, who plays our delightful ingénue, Isabel." Daniel finished the introductions by placing a proprietary hand against the small of the blonde actress's back.

There was a sudden loud clang from backstage, like a steel door slamming shut, causing several members of the theater company to flinch slightly as Sam and Dean exchanged glances. The auburn-haired actress appeared abruptly at the left side of the stage, now wearing a blouse and slacks that skimmed her curves closely, and Dean bounced again on the balls of his feet, just once, not so impatiently this time.

"Daniel, darling," she called, "that wasn't me, I swear."

"I'm sure it was nothing, Zandra," Sharon Palmer called back to her, just a trace of unease in her voice as she looked to Sam and Dean for their reactions.

"Zandra, dear, come down here," Daniel said, casually snaking his arm around Geneva's waist as he turned. "These two gentlemen are from a new arts journal, and they're here to do a piece on our show."

"I'm sure it's going to be excellent," Sam said, amping the enthusiasm in his voice. Geneva was eyeing him with cool appraisal, a slight smile on the ingénue's face as she brushed a strand of pale blonde hair off her forehead, and Hallie's eyes darted nervously between Sam and Daniel. Sam smiled disarmingly at each of them in turn. "How exciting to be doing a piece written by the man who built this magnificent theater. You know, Ms. Palmer—may I call you Sharon?—we really don't want to interrupt the rehearsal, so maybe we could just watch for a while, get a feel for the production and for the space. Then we could talk with you and Daniel and everyone else a little later, get you to fill in the blanks for us. Don't you think that's the way to go, Dean?"

His brother had been watching the older actress make her way across the stage, down the steps and up the theater aisle toward them, threading between the company members until she stood directly in front of him and smiled up into his eyes, dropped her gaze lazily to his mouth, raised it back to his eyes. Dean grinned, recognizing the moves of a kindred spirit with similar talents and interests, for all that she had twenty years on him. The allure wasn't so much in the package, he decided, but in the way she sold it. Admittedly, the package was pretty good, too. He took his hands out of his pockets.

"Sam, Dean, this is Zandra Stewart, our principal actress," Sharon said, the introduction all but superfluous by this time.

"Enchanté," Zandra said, her voice low and throaty, never taking her eyes off Dean, moving in close to take his hand.

"I'm Dean."

"Of course you are. How could you possibly be anyone else?"

Sam caught Geneva rolling her eyes, and one of the actors—Randall, the leading man—seemed annoyed.

"Excuse me?" Dean found it interesting to be the one hunted, for a change; found it kind of stimulating to watch a brazen master at work. Maybe more than kind of stimulating. His grin widened.

"I just mean that whoever you are, whatever you are, I can tell that you're probably the very, very best at it. Daniel, can we move on to our next scene, please? I'm looking forward to finishing early, so Dean can—" there was a slight pause as she gave his hand a little squeeze—"interview me."

She released his hand, still keeping her eyes on his as she stepped back and finally turned away, moving down the aisle toward the stage. Dean knew she knew he was watching her ass, and he finally had to wipe off his smile with his hand as Sam glared at him and—what was his name? Randall?—openly bridled at the little performance they had just witnessed.

Sharon seemed flustered. "It's fine for you gentlemen to watch the rehearsal," she finally managed, "if it's all right with Daniel."

"Hmm? Oh, of course," the director said, turning to the blonde woman at his side. "Geneva, your work in that last scene was brilliant, just spot on. And you looked luminous. All right, everyone, let's get go—"

The sconces along the theater walls flickered briefly, then came back full strength as the actors and crew froze, became completely silent. Sam looked at Dean, and Dean sucked thoughtfully on the inside of his cheek, watching the faces of the theater company.

Among them, Daniel recovered first. "Let's get going, people. We have a lot of work to do tonight, and I want to be sure we run through the first act entirely. Chop chop!"

-:- -:- -:-

The Winchesters took seats behind and to Hallie's right, the girl scribbling furiously as the rehearsal proceeded. Twice she opened a small white container and took out a tablet of something, swallowing it down with bottled water. Craning his neck, Sam read the label on the container—"Echinacea 450 mg."

Daniel was up and down the theater aisle, calling directions and encouragement, repositioning furniture on the stage, momentarily taking over a role to show his actors how he wanted a scene done. Sharon never moved except once, to throw a nervous smile back at Sam and Dean, smile freezing when she saw Dean with his head back and his mouth hanging open, asleep in his seat. Sam gave her a series of happy nods and an encouraging thumbs-up before elbowing Dean in the side.

"Dude!" Dean hissed, almost forgetting that Sam didn't know about his rib. "What'd you wake me up for? This play is crap, Sam—they'd better get used to their audiences falling asleep."

Sam had to admit his brother was right. 'Rochester Romp' was a trite drawing-room comedy with virtually nothing funny in it, although Sam had grown amused by the leading man's inability to remember his lines. Apparently a large part of the comedy was meant to come from the characters' reactions to things the family butler had done—in almost every scene, someone cried, "The butler did it!" Oh, yeah, hilarious. America's sense of humor had come a long way since the 1920's.

When Daniel finally called for a short break, the director took Hallie's notebook and joined his actors on stage for some quick notes. Sam took advantage of the time to speak with Sharon, while Dean prowled through the rows of seats, ostensibly stretching his legs, but on the alert for anything unusual. He made his way up to the balcony area and leaned over the rail, thinking that if he had any popcorn, he could probably toss a handful or so into the hood of Sam's jacket before his brother knew what was going on. The theater looked new and felt new, but that had been fear on Sharon's face when the lights flickered, and no one had even questioned the banging door backstage, when everyone except Zandra had been out front. Something weird was definitely going on in this place.

-:- -:- -:-

"I see you're taking Echinacea." Having finished with Sharon, Sam turned his gentle attention to Hallie, trying not to make her more skittish than she already seemed. She had something in her hands, ribbon or cord or something, and she seemed to be braiding it.

"Oh, I use it so I won't catch a cold," she explained, looking surprised that he would speak to her. "It seems like I always get one just before we open a show."

"You take a lot of notes, and I know you're going to be fixing that door, and hemming Zandra's dress—sounds like you're pretty indispensable around here."

"Oh, no—Daniel's the indispensable one. I'm just a go-fer." Hallie ducked her head, smiling shyly at the floor. "See? I even have time for my macramé. I'm making a belt."

She held up a narrow, web-like strap of red fabric ribbon, braided, knotted and beaded, for him to see, and Sam nodded his approval.

"Nice. I thought macramé was done with jute or cord—I've never seen anyone use ribbon before."

"Oh, you can always trust Hallie to come up with something offbeat," came a voice to his side, and Sam turned to find Geneva standing in the aisle, holding a soda can in one hand and what was probably coffee in the other. "Your choice," the blonde actress offered. "Come on, leave Hallie to her little art project and let's go catch some fresh air before Daniel gets things rolling again."

"Hey, watch it!" a man's voice called in alarm, and they looked to the stage to see the actor playing Major Brickley make a frantic grab for a flower vase as it teetered alarmingly on an end table, then plummeted to the floor with a crash.

"Philip!" Daniel chided.

The 40-something actor held out his hands to both sides. "I swear I didn't come within two feet of it!"

"Well, never mind. Just try to be more careful." The director tented a hand over his eyes and called out across the rows of seats. "Hallie! We need another vase, now. Can you clean this up before break's over?"

"Thank goodness for Hallie," Geneva said coolly as Hallie stuffed her macramé into the book-bag under her seat, rose wordlessly but with a tentative look up at Sam, and went to make things right on the stage.

"Hallie, I hope we'll have another chance to talk," he called after her, before Geneva tugged at his sleeve.

"Come on, Sam. There are chairs in the alley, and I need some fresh air. Let's go get to know one another, shall we?"

Sam unfolded himself from the soft, faux-velvet seat and followed her down the theater aisle to the side door. She flashed a smile back at him over her shoulder, and he reached around her to push the crash-bar for her.

"Thank you, kind sir," she drawled, voice gone Southern as she batted her eyelashes at him and laughed. "'I have always depended upon the kindness of strangers.' Now, what will you have, cola or coffee?"

She preceded him out the door and into the cool night air of the alley. Sam looked back to find Dean sitting near the rear of the theater, saw Zandra making a languorous beeline for him (if there was such a thing), saw Dean get to his feet and answer her smile of greeting with one of his own. _The woman was old enough to be their mother, for God's sake!_ Sam's lips thinned momentarily, then relaxed. Dean was many things, and an equal opportunity Lothario was one of them. Whatever. Sam followed Geneva out into the alleyway.

-:- -:- -:-

_In Chapter 2, the brothers encounter the spirits of the Palmer Theater. For Sam, it's a terrifying encounter he won't soon forget—assuming he survives._


	2. Chapter 2

_**Disclaimer**: "Supernatural" is not mine. This was written completely for fun. _

_**A/N**: The rating for this story comes mostly from something Sam experiences at the very end of this chapter. If you were at all squeamish about what happened between Sam and Jo at the bar in "Born Under a Bad Sign," then you might want to miss the last several paragraphs of this chapter. They're really not very graphic, but you might feel better if you just quit reading when the EMF meter squeals. It would be great if you'd then pick the story back up in Chapter 3._

-:- -:- -:-

"So, Sam," Geneva began, wrapping her hands around her Styrofoam coffee cup as they settled into the metal folding chairs someone had brought out to the alley, "you and your friend don't really strike me as 'arts journal' types."

Sam tried to cover his discomfort with a laugh, but wasn't sure he succeeded. Geneva's focus on him was flattering but unnerving. "What type's that?" he asked, taking a long pull from his can of soda.

Geneva gave him another appraising once-over, arching an eyebrow. "You know what they say about theater—it's the place where most of the men are gay and most of the women are sluts."

The side door opened with a clang, and Zandra stepped out into the alleyway, Dean right behind her. "I know the perfect place," the woman said as she took his arm and drew close, escorting him toward the street, laughing coquettishly. Sam saw the leer on Dean's face, had little doubt where this was headed, sooner or later.

Geneva frowned after them, her disapproval evident in her tone. "Speaking of sluts," she said, taking a sip of coffee.

"Dean, yeah, but Zandra, too?" Sam asked casually, and Geneva snorted a laugh into her cup, shot him a wicked grin.

"Oh, Zandra's a local legend, for all sorts of reasons. But she's quite good on stage, and I've learned a lot from her, craft-wise. She has phenomenal focus, for one thing—once she's in character, nothing that happens on or off stage can shake her out of it, unless she chooses. There's a story, from back in the day—she was playing 'Lizzie' in 'The Rainmaker,' and was in the middle of this enormously important, emotional speech when a bat flew onstage."

"A bat?"

"Yeah, you know—vampire, Dracula, suck-your-blood kind of bat. This was when the Players were still performing in the high school auditorium. Anyway, without missing a beat, Zandra grabbed a broom they were using for set-dressing, and took a swing as the thing flew by. Smacked it off the stage and into the wings, finished her monologue, and brought the audience to its feet. She got rave reviews as 'Lizzie,' and even better reviews as 'Batgirl.'"

Sam chuckled, and Geneva gave him another sideways look. "It's a great story," she said, "and yet you're not writing anything down."

Jolted, Sam glanced down at the blank notepad in his hand. "Oh, uh—no, it _is_ a great story, and I'm going to be sure to ask her about it. Or Dean will. But Geneva, our focus is really on _this_ production, 'Rochester Romp.' You know, a revival show, written by the man who built the theater, produced by his granddaughter, all the history in between—that's pretty compelling stuff."

"If you say so."

"Tell me about what's been interesting—anything that stands out to you."

Geneva shrugged. "Don't get me wrong—I love acting, and I'm looking forward to opening next week, but really, the script is pretty simplistic. I mean, Isabel's lines are all, 'Oh, Lionel, this' and 'Oh, Lionel, that.' She's not exactly the most dynamic ingénue, you know. And Topher and I—oh, speak of the devil."

The side door opened again, and Christopher came out, punching at the buttons on his cell phone. Catching sight of Geneva and Sam, the young man smiled and joined them.

"Hey. How's the interview going?"

"Sam's got such a great memory, he doesn't even need to take notes," Geneva said with only a hint of dryness. "Think what a great help that would be to an actor."

Christopher grinned. "I'm jealous," he said. "So, have you done any acting, Sam? You've got the leading-man looks, or the male love interest's, that's for sure."

Not quite sure how to respond, Sam opened his mouth to reply, but was saved when Geneva cut him off. "Stop flirting, Topher," she chided with mock severity, lacing her arm through Sam's. "You've got yours—give me a shot at this one. Go away and finish your pornographic text message to Bart."

Christopher laughed, looking down at his cell. "Neve, you always _could_ read my mind! Hey, Daniel said he'll be ready to go in ten minutes. I'm just going for a pack of smokes, then I'll be right back."

Geneva made idle shooing motions at him, and Christopher walked down the alley, intent on his text message once again.

"How he managed to find a boyfriend in this backwater town is completely beyond me," the girl said. "So, Sam—Topher or me? Which one of us was picking up the right signals?" Geneva removed her arm from Sam's and kicked her heels against the legs of her chair, watching him expectantly.

"Excuse me? Oh, uh—you were. Are."

"Goody," she said with a purr, bumping against him with her shoulder. "I'm pretty adept at reading people, but you've got me a little confused. Like I said, you don't seem like the euphemistically artsy type to me, and yet I can't shake the feeling that you're acting right now."

The look she gave him was friendly, but challenging, and Sam laughed again, more easily this time.

"No worries there," he said. "I'm pretty much 'what you see is what you get.'"

"I like what I see," Geneva replied, putting down her now-empty cup and tossing her hair back off her shoulder. "And I suspect I'd like what I'd get, too."

Sam was pretty sure he blushed.

-:- -:- -:-

"That looks like it must have been painful." Zandra reached across the tiny table of the booth to solicitously touch the bruise on Dean's left cheekbone. Instinctively he began to pull away, but when Zandra moved, the neck of her blouse gaped open, allowing him a better look at provocative breasts in a lacy black bra. It proved sufficiently distracting to let her touch his face.

"Oh, that," he said, not even bothering to raise his eyes to hers. "Ran into a door."

She laughed and let him enjoy the view, even when the waitress brought their mugs of coffee. "Darling, if ever I thought you really were a theater person, I don't any longer. 'Ran into a door'? Where's the drama?"

Dean cocked an inquisitive eyebrow, finally meeting her intense gaze. "Beg pardon?"

"Sugar? No?" she asked, little finger extended as she selected a packet of sugar substitute and emptied its contents into her coffee. She'd taken off her costume jewelry, Dean noticed, including the wedding band. "What I mean is, where's the drama in your story? When a true theater person gets injured, he never just casually shrugs it off. Oh, no—an injury is an opportunity for entertainment, for embellishment. You need a much better story! Something like, oh, there was this bar-fight. With three Hell's Angels."

"Bar fight," Dean replied thoughtfully, rubbing his hand over his chin.

Zandra smiled and leaned in again, her eyes twinkling at him over the rim of her coffee mug. Dean felt the sudden gentle pressure of her bare foot against the inside of his right calf, and tried not to smile back.

"I once tripped on a porch-step in my own backyard—sprained my ankle? I had everyone believing I'd had a skiing accident in Park City, run down on the slopes by Vince Vaughn." She ran a finger innocently along the neckline of her blouse, watched him watch her, shifted just a little closer to the table. "Really, darling, people expect extraordinary things from you, if you're in theater. Anyone can run into a door, sprain her ankle—but nothing that mundane should ever happen to an _actor_. We're meant to be special, to have exciting things happen to us, so that when the ordinary people hear us or see us, they can forget their own humdrum little lives, even for just a moment."

Dean nodded, vaguely trying to remember the last time his life might have been considered 'mundane,' then blinked once as her foot traveled upward to his inner thigh. He cleared his throat. "So, if I told you that Sam accidentally clipped me with his elbow last week while we were taking out a werewolf…."

Zandra waved her hands in mock horror, her laugh a mezzo trill that ran up and down the scale. "Oh, no! Your story has to be believable, at least! Stick with the bar fight. Take my advice; one good friend to another."

Dean felt her foot rub teasingly against him, blinked again, caught his breath just a little. "Something tells me we're going to be very good friends," he said, reaching for his coffee as a diversion. It wasn't the first time an older woman had flirted with him, certainly, and he knew it wouldn't be the last, but there was something fascinatingly audacious and confident and, hell, _steamroller_ about this one's technique. Not to mention she had a damn fine rack on her. Shame he had work to do. Dean took a gulp of lukewarm coffee and got back to it. "So, Zandra, this play you're doing. Pretty interesting, huh?"

"Oh, God, no," she said, rolling her eyes. The foot against his thigh abruptly vanished. "It's a silly piece of tripe. Darling, you know that writing really good drawing-room comedy requires a Noel Coward, or an Oscar Wilde, not a provincial little banker like Chauncey Palmer. 'Rochester Romp' has no sophistication, no joie de vivre, no _zing_. My character, for example—Penelope Robinson? She should be witty and charming and sharp as tacks—rather like me, if I may humbly say so—but the way she's written, it takes every acting skill I have just to keep her from coming across as an empty-headed piece of living-room furniture. Oh, Lord, please don't write that down!"

Dean hadn't made a move to write anything, didn't even have a notepad or a pen with him, but if Zandra noticed, it didn't stop her. He wasn't sure _any_thing could stop her.

"I mean, it's fabulous to be a part of this important piece of local history. Sharon spent a fortune rebuilding the theater, and she's done wonders. Really, it was such a horrible place for so long—abandoned for decades after the tragedy of the first show. The fire, those poor actors, the stagehand…."

Dean nodded thoughtfully, drummed the fingers of one hand against the table for a moment. "I couldn't help but notice that the building doesn't seem quite ready—you've maybe got some electrical problems with the lights, maybe some doors that don't close properly. You ever notice anything else like that?"

"The show must go on, darling." Zandra reached out suddenly to take Dean's hand in hers, indolently tracing a design in the palm of it, tracing it twice more and sucking ever so slightly on her lower lip. "Be sure to spell my name right in your article, Dean," she said randomly, looking up at him from under coyly lowered lashes.

Dean chuckled, leaned in closer over the table. "That's the letter 'Z.' Would that be the Mark of Zandra?"

"There's something you wouldn't need a story for," she replied, voice smoky and intimate. "The truth would serve very nicely."

"Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs. Robinson?" Dean asked, all innocence, and Zandra straightened in surprise, then laughed delightedly.

"Oh, God!" she crowed. "You're a hat-trick, darling—sexy and smart _and_ funny!"

Dean quirked a smile. "Never said I was that smart."

Zandra laughed harder, for a moment dropping all artifice, and despite the harsh fluorescent lights of the diner, Dean thought she looked genuinely pretty—hell, maybe even beautiful, for someone her age.

"So, this play—" he prompted, wincing inside at having to get back to work, and Zandra sank back in the vinyl bench-seat with a businesslike sigh, still chortling. She stirred another packet of sugar substitute into her rapidly cooling coffee.

"Maybe you do work for a theater magazine, after all. All right, have it your way. We've got a great cast, for the most part, and Daniel's always been a gifted director. He's got such an eye for detail, and I think he's coaxing the best performances ever out of Randall and Carl. And it's really too bad that Ida quit, because now Daniel has to worry about that, too."

"Let me get these names straight. Randall? That's, uh—Mr. Robinson, right?"

"Yes, my husband."

"Right. And Carl?"

"Is the butler, and Ida was playing Nanny, until she quit yesterday. Can you imagine? A week before we open, and…really, it's quite unprofessional. She's been with the company for years."

"What happened?"

Zandra gave an exaggerated shrug with one shoulder. "Oh, stress or something, although she had the fewest lines of any of us, by far. I mean, if anyone was going to be stressed, it would be Daniel or Sharon, with so much riding on this show. Or Carl, of course."

Dean let his face ask the question, and Zandra picked up her cue immediately.

"Poor man just learned he has prostate cancer, not a year after losing his wife to cervical cancer. Isn't that just too much?"

"Huh. Sorry to hear that. But he's still doing the play?"

"Oh, yes—he's quite a trouper. And Daniel has decided to play Nanny himself. It's really too late to cast anyone else, and God knows Hallie could never do it. Besides, no one in Burlberg will even notice that the part's being played by the director in drag. That's small-town theater for you!"

"What about the others?" Dean asked.

"Oh, well. What to say? Philip—well, Philip's got a few local commercials on his resume, but I always tease him that he shouldn't quit his day job! Geneva and Topher make a darling couple, although they can't really sell their relationship, you know. I don't mean to blow my own horn, but I'm the reason people will want to see this show. I guess you could say my reputation precedes me."

Zandra abruptly removed a compact and lipstick from her purse, reapplied professionally and snapped the compact closed with a flourish, gathering her things. "Ready?"

Dean raised his eyebrows, caught up quickly. "Yeah, got to get back to rehearsal." He withdrew a few singles from his wallet and tossed them on the table, then hoisted himself out of the booth. When Zandra didn't follow suit, he offered her his hand and assisted her from her seat. She placed warm fingers on his arm and modestly pressed her lips to his cheek, every move artful and artificial, but seemingly uncontrived.

"Thanks so much for the coffee," she cooed, beaming at him incandescently. "Next time, it'll be my treat."

Dean thought it would probably be his treat, too, with or without coffee.

-:- -:- -:-

Much later, after rehearsal had ended, after the Winchesters had rented a room at Burlberg's only motel, and after they'd filled one another in on what they'd learned that evening, Dean kept an eye on the street while Sam knelt at the theater's side door, jimmying the lock expertly.

"She batted the bat? Huh. Dude, we are so hooking up, this gig," Dean whispered. "Zandra can't wait to get into my pants."

Sam cut him a disgusted look. "Don't you think she's a little mature for you, Dean?"

His brother shrugged. "She's probably learned a few tricks along the way, and wants to try them out on a young guy with stamina. Namely me."

Sam snorted, shaking his head in disbelief. "You're such a man-whore."

There was no point in denying that, so Dean ignored the comment. "Sounds like you could be getting some action with Geneva, and I think that Hallie chick was giving you the eye, too."

"You find out where the stagehand was buried?" Sam asked to change the subject. Rather than risk snoring through the second half of rehearsal, Dean had excused himself and gone to the cemetery to locate Stanley Williamson's final resting place.

"Yup. Up the hill, past the tree, four rows in, just to the right of the headstone with the lambs on top. Or they might be horses. Or dogs—I really couldn't tell. Freaky looking things, anyway."

Sam heaved a sigh, habituated though he was to Dean's random critiques. "Good. After we check things out here, we can deal with the bones if we need to."

He exerted a little extra effort on the lock, and there was an audible _snick_ as the door opened. With another quick look up and down the alley, he and Dean slid cautiously inside the theater.

They had seen Daniel and a laughing Geneva leave together, followed shortly after by Hallie, who had paused long enough to make sure that the side door was locked. Now, as expected, the theater was empty.

It yawned before them, veiled by darkness despite a floor-lamp set in the middle of the stage, where a naked bulb cast feeble light.

"Now, what the hell good does that do?" Dean asked, gesturing to the lamp.

"Tradition, Dean. That's a ghost-light."

"You're kidding me."

"No, that's really what it's called. Superstition has it that ghosts take up residence in a theater if it's ever left completely dark."

It was Dean's turn to snort. "Ghosts are going to take up residence anywhere they damn well please."

"Yeah, well, that's why we're here, isn't it?" Sam paused to pull at the heavy red velvet curtain that hung against the wall of the proscenium arch, making certain nothing was hidden within. "A theater without a play in it is called a 'dark' theater, so the ghost-light sort of serves a double purpose. The theater isn't exactly dark—it's like it's waiting for the next production, so the ghosts won't move in. And, of course, the light keeps people from running into anything that might be left on the stage."

"Whatever." Already bored, Dean pulled the video camera out of the duffel bag he carried, setting it to night-vision and taking a quick sweep of the stage while Sam scanned with the EMF meter.

"I'm getting nothing here," Dean said after a few moments. "Let's check the, uh—" He gestured lamely out into the tiers of plush fold-up seats that stretched back from the stage and orchestra pit.

Sam smiled. "The auditorium is called the house," he instructed, sounding a little didactic even to himself. "And that up there is the balcony, of course."

"Drama dork," Dean muttered. "Got your flashlight? I'll start with the downstairs, and you take the upstairs. Holler if you find anything."

They made a thorough search, but found nothing, with the exception of two seats in the down position, side by side, high in the balcony. At Sam's touch, they both easily sprang back upright.

"Not exactly a smoking gun," Dean proclaimed, although he didn't remember them being down when he'd been in the balcony earlier that afternoon. "Come on, let's check the back."

The cavernous space behind the stage was used to build the sets, and was presently filled with stacks of sheet lumber, boards, canvas and saw-horses. On one side, four narrow doors lined the wall; on the other side, a series of doors opened off a short hallway. The loading-dock was accessed through the back wall.

Sam indicated the hallway, moved toward it wordlessly while Dean tried the doors set into the theater's side wall. Each was locked, but he made short work of that, discovering small storage spaces behind three of them, filled with construction tools and lighting equipment and cans of paint. Dean examined the contents carefully, swept them with the video camera, noted the newness of the equipment. He added rough numbers quickly in his head, then raised an eyebrow—clearly, Sharon Palmer had invested a lot in making sure the theater had the very best money could buy.

The fourth door opened into the costume shop, larger than the other three spaces combined. Two big work-tables stood in the center of the shop, along with several dress-forms. A sewing machine and a stacked, large-capacity washer/dryer combination sat against one wall, while mirrors lined the adjacent wall. Trunks and cardboard boxes overflowing with fabric and costume pieces had been placed haphazardly throughout the room. It was clear that most of the costumes hanging on the rack nearest the door weren't suitable for 'Rochester Romp,' and Dean thought it was a fair assumption that the Burlberg Players had already moved many of their belongings into their new home. He ran a hand along the costumes, setting them swinging on their hangers, and absently paused when he came to the one Zandra had modeled at rehearsal that evening. The blue one with the really low neckline….

"Gotcha, suckers," he murmured, catching sight of two tiny, translucent circles of light appearing on the video camera's view-screen. The light circles floated lazily across the center of the room, approaching one another and then seeming to pirouette in a dance of intricate choreography.

"Sam!" Dean called. "I got orbs!"

-:- -:- -:-

Six doors opened off the little hallway, three on a side, and Sam was confident he'd find that they fronted the actors' dressing rooms. In fact, the first room on the left was a unisex restroom, complete with shower, and it appeared that Daniel and Hallie used the first room on the right as an office. Rough sketches of set design littered the bigger of two small desks, along with a draft of the playbill and a thin sheaf of actors' resumes and headshots, Geneva's on top. The other desk was bare except for an apple, Hallie's bottle of Echinacea tablets, and a small bottle of waterless hand sanitizer. Poor kid must really be worried about coming down with something, Sam thought briefly.

He swept the room, but the EMF meter was silent, and he focused his attention on Geneva's photograph, flashed quickly on what she'd look like naked. The thought deserved longer consideration.

The next door down opened into the leading man's dressing room, outfitted with a small table, a chair, a trash can, and a large mirror surrounded by bare light bulbs. Randall Allen's script was held open by a packet of throat lozenges to a scene with a lot of give-and-take banter between Arthur and Penelope Robinson, Arthur's lines highlighted in yellow.

Across the hall, Zandra Stewart's dressing room had already acquired a lived-in look. A box of tissues and various containers of makeup were strewn haphazardly across the table, and a pair of fluffy house-slippers lay under it. A dressing gown—green silk with Chinese ideograms—hung from a hook on the door.

Reaching the end of the hallway, Sam looked into the room on the men's side first. As he expected, it was set up for Christopher, Philip and Carl, each having his own tiny table and mirror. It was easy to guess who sat where—surely Christopher's was the table with the package of clove cigarettes, and Carl's the one with the half-empty bottle of generic ibuprofen caplets, which meant Philip's table was the one with that day's issue of _The Des Moines Register _lying on it.

Sam had purposefully saved Geneva's room for last. Technically, she shared it with the actress who had been playing Nanny, but with Daniel taking over the role, Sam was sure that Geneva would have the little room to herself. Stowing his flashlight, Sam flicked the wall-plate switch.

There was a vase on the table, filled with a spray of dried heather, and Geneva had taped various photos of herself to the dry-wall. Sam examined the photos curiously—they were obviously publicity shots taken for plays Geneva had performed in, and just as obviously she had played a wide variety of roles. Juliet, he surmised from one costume and what he could see of the set. Anne Frank, Sally Bowles, Marian the Librarian, and Dorothy. Others he couldn't readily identify.

Taped directly above the flower vase was an autographed photo of a much-younger Daniel, brooding dramatically for the camera, dressed in a dark turtleneck, looking very GQ. _All my love_, the inscription read.

Beside the vase were several makeup brushes, a pair of pearl earrings, a container of face powder, and a small wooden box. Picking it up, Sam heard something shift inside. He opened it cautiously. Cotton balls, mostly, but tucked under them were two unopened foil packets. Trojans.

"Huh." He looked up again at the photograph of Daniel, and thought perhaps the director and Geneva might be sharing a dressing room, after all.

The EMF meter let out an odd, abrupt squeal, and fell as abruptly silent, when suddenly a massive force picked Sam off the floor and hurled him face-first into the wall, knocking the wind out of him, splaying him there, shoving against him, pressing him hard against the flat surface, his toes barely on the floor. Whatever it was that had him, it crowded him close, like a wrestler pinning every inch of him. Touched him without touching, because there was nothing there, _nothing, _just a crushing force compelling him into the wall. Sam struggled to get his breath, couldn't move even for that, cheek smashed against the sheetrock, and when he tried to cry out for Dean, his voice was the merest husk.

He felt an icy chill enter him, felt icy fingers twining lasciviously in his unkempt hair, icy hands on his body, arctic breath on his cheek, something cold and moist and pliant in his ear. Felt his own body becoming unimaginably but undeniably aroused, through his terror and revulsion as the obscene force held him secure against the wall, unable to protect himself from its ravaging power.

Sam tried to call out again, and the force flattened him harder against the wall, crowded even closer so that it was now impossible to breathe, and Sam's vision grayed. For a moment he was nearly overwhelmed by claustrophobia as the thing leeched onto him, adhered itself to his back and arms and legs. Then, worse, he felt it inside him, inside his head, needle-like icicles of raw emotion penetrating his own horror.

_Give_.

There was no voice, just an inundating sense of _lust_ flooding through him, lust and rage, filling the hollow places, worming swiftly and sinuously around him and through him.

_Give!_

The feeling like a tongue was still in his ear, feelings like hands still stroked him roughly, embraced him, and when Sam tried to shrink away, to protect his mind and his body from the force's invasion, still it pressed against him, clung to him, angrily twisted and swelled things inside him that should not have been reachable.

_Show you. Take you. Give me!_

The sensation was urgent and demanding, and Sam felt his arousal grow, although his mental energy was draining away, sucked out of him as though by a ravenous mouth, impatient and hungry and savage.

_Take you. Take you! Fuck you!_

It was more erotic than anything he'd ever known, and he thought vaguely that it might be the death of him.

From far away Sam heard Dean's voice calling him, but then there was only the thing that clutched him tight, stealing his strength and his sanity, assaulting him, invading him without mercy, his vision darkening, his body mindlessly responding. And that was all he knew.

-:- -:- -:-

_In Chapter 3, Sam deals with the aftermath of the attack, while Dean faces failure, and has his own encounter with the thing that haunts the Palmer Theater._


	3. Chapter 3

_**Disclaimer**: They're so pretty, and they're so not mine. _

_**A/N**: Thanks for hanging in there! There's a fair amount of angst in this chapter. I look forward to your comments--I promise to respond to them all, if ever this site "finds" my story when I try to see the reviews! Must be haunted..._

-:- -:- -:-

When Sam didn't answer his shout, Dean cocked a finger at the two orbs in the costume shop. "Don't go anywhere," he ordered, then headed across the backstage area. Sam wasn't in the hallway, but the far door on the right was ajar, and light spilled from within.

"Sam? Sammy?"

There was a deep groan, then, coming from the open room, and as he moved down the hall, Dean reached automatically for the gun he had stashed in the waistband of his jeans, released the safety, flattened himself against the wall outside the open door, twisted to peer inside quickly. Saw his brother hugging the far wall, jammed up against it, not moving, all color drained out of what Dean could see of his face, leaving Sam a ghastly shade of pale blue. Something like a shadow flowed against his back, along his outspread arms and legs, a head-like shape pressed against Sam's head as though cheek to cheek with him.

There was an odd smell—rosemary and vanilla and something else Dean couldn't quite identify.

"Sam!" he cried. The younger Winchester's eyes were closed tight, his face agonized as he groaned again loudly, impossibly pressing even harder into the wall. Dean shoved the pistol back into his waistband and grabbed at the duffel bag, laying hands quickly on the silver crucifix stashed in a side pocket, thrusting it out and advancing on whatever the thing was that held his brother transfixed against the wall.

-:- -:- -:-

He was ice-cold, even the moisture in his eyes seeming frozen, and Sam thought he might shatter into a million pieces from the weight that trapped him, held him so motionless that he felt the shuddering only inside himself. The wintry breath hissed again along his cheek as chill teeth raked salaciously down his earlobe, but suddenly the pressure eased, vanished, and Sam heard his brother call his name in dread.

Then Dean's warm hands had him, turned him away from the wall, and Sam sucked in a great gasp of air, quaking in earnest now from the cold and from reaction, reaching out blindly to grasp his brother's arms before sinking to the floor, taking Dean down with him, the older Winchester searching his face desperately.

"Sammy? C'mon on, man, talk to me. Sam!"

Dean drew him in fiercely as Sam shivered uncontrollably in his embrace, teeth chattering as the obscene blue in his skin slowly receded, leaving him a pallid white. Dean reared back, put a hand against Sam's cheek, felt the ice there diminish and tore off his jacket to drape it around Sam's quivering body. Then he sat alongside his brother and pulled him again into his arms, rubbing briskly to restore circulation, eyes darting frantically about the little room in case the shadow-thing should return. The smell was still strong, but the only flowers he could see sure as hell weren't rosemary and they sure as hell weren't vanilla, and what the fuck was that other smell? Dean hooked a toe through the duffel bag's shoulder strap, drew it closer to them with his foot, wanting it handy if he needed it. The crucifix lay at his side.

It took several minutes before Sam was able to speak, still struggling for breath although a hint of color had now returned to his skin.

"Dean," he managed unevenly, not meeting his brother's eyes although he reached up to twist his hand in the fabric of Dean's shirt. "I need to get cleaned up."

Dean heard the humiliation in Sam's voice, didn't understand until Sam shifted uncomfortably beside him, suddenly identified the odd aroma that lingered in the room. How could he not have recognized it, he wondered bitterly, realizing at last at least part of what had just happened. Amidst the fading scent of rosemary and vanilla was the rank smell of sex.

-:- -:- -:-

Dean was furious by the time he got Sam back to the motel, parked him on the closed seat of the toilet and twisted on the hot water in the tub.

"All right," he growled, kneeling to pull off Sam's boots and socks. "At least we know what kind of sick spirit we're dealing with here. Give me my jacket and get your shirt off, Sam."

By this time Sam had regained some coherence. "No, Dean, I don't think it was a succubus or an incubus. It didn't feel like that. It's like it was inside my head."

Dean looked up at him sharply, and Sam felt his face redden, the sudden flow of blood stinging his still-icy cheeks. "I mean, there wasn't any—well, I did, but it didn't. It never even…It's not like it really touched me. This was different," he finished lamely.

"What the hell are you talking about, Sam?" Dean slammed out of the bathroom, grabbed the bag Sam kept his clothes in, rifled through it for something clean for his brother to wear.

"It was angry, Dean."

"Yeah, well, Sam, rape is an act of violence."

"I wasn't raped, Dean. I told you. It was in my head." Sam's voice sounded so tired, and Dean felt the knot in his stomach clench tighter. At last finding what he needed, he dropped the bag and returned to the bathroom, put the clean clothing on the sink, reached across Sam to test the temperature of the water and turned on the shower. Sam hadn't moved.

"Come on," Dean said, reclaiming his jacket and taking Sam's outer shirt along with it. "Arms up."

When he tried to help his brother remove his t-shirt, Sam feebly batted his hands away. "I can do it—just give me a minute," the younger Winchester said, annoyed now. "Listen to me. That thing was angry, like it was trying to get back at me for something, or like it wanted to prove something to me."

"I don't give a damn how it was feeling or what it wanted. Nobody mind-fucks my brother, Sam. Now, are you getting in that shower or what?"

"Yeah, yeah. Get out of here so I can get undressed."

"Look, I'm going to go salt and burn that mother Stan. You be all right here?" Sam's gaze was on the floor, and he gave no answer. Dean hesitated, then put his hands on either side of his brother's face, tilted his head up, forced him to look directly at him.

"Answer me. Are you all right?" Dean asked, searching Sam's red-rimmed eyes.

"Go," Sam said, pulling away, thinking he'd never felt so tired, tired to his very bones. "I'll be fine."

-:- -:- -:-

After he'd closed the bathroom door behind him, Dean pressed his ear against it until he heard his brother stand up with a heavy sigh, take a few moments, and step into the shower. Then Dean used the can of salt to trace a heavy line along the doorway, traced it over until he was satisfied, shrugged into his jacket and headed for the cemetery. Finding the old stagehand's grave again was easy enough, and anger fueled his muscles so that the digging was accomplished in record time. Dean felt something perversely akin to joy when he broke through the coffin lid with the point of his shovel, liberally doused the white bones with salt and lighter fluid, and struck the match.

"Burn in hell, you fucking bastard," he said aloud as the flames rose.

He was back at the motel in less than two hours, expecting to find Sam asleep or on the laptop, but the room was as he left it, bathroom door still closed, salt undisturbed, shower still running. Alarmed, he pounded on the door.

"Sam?"

Getting no response, Dean ignored courtesy and burst into the bathroom, saw Sam huddled in the back of the tub, arms limp at his sides, knees drawn up, forehead resting against them as the cold water splashed down on his shivering body.

"God damn it, Sammy!"

Dean threw back the shower curtain and twisted the water off, then flung a towel over his brother's shoulders and hoisted him roughly out of the tub, Sam obeying mutely. Dean felt sickened, kicking himself for leaving Sam alone. _Should've known better, should've thought about how vulnerable he would be. Damn it, Dean, you fuck_, he cursed himself. _Are you trying to kill him?_ Felt even sicker with that thought—_not going there, not now, not ever—God, Sam, what the hell is happening here? Damn it!_

Sam's eyes were open and vacant, but life seemed to return to them when Dean began to towel him dry vigorously.

"Dean, man, what the fuck?" Sam pushed ineffectually at Dean's hands, and Dean gave him the towel, made sure he had it before letting go.

"That's exactly right," the older Winchester retorted angrily. "What the fuck, Sam? What the _fuck_ is going on with you? Talk to me!"

"Nothing." Sam made a half-assed attempt to wrap the towel around himself, moved like he was in molasses, hands not working, mouth not working, mind not working. "I'm just so tired," he mumbled.

"Come on."

Dean steered his brother out of the bathroom, grabbed the blanket off the nearest bed, swaddled him in it. Did the same with the other one, then sat Sam down and perched opposite him, until Dean was pretty sure he wasn't going to fall over. "Dude, you gotta tell me what's going on," he pleaded.

Sam looked at him stupidly, had to struggle to make the right words come, could barely manage.

"I was thinking about tonight—what happened. And what you said about Hallie and Geneva…about them with me." Sam's face crumpled, just a little, and when he spoke again his voice was so forlorn that Dean felt it twist in his heart like a sharp blade. "And then I was thinking about Jessica."

Jessica? Christ, Dean had thought that agony was over and done with a long time ago.

"Sammy," Dean began, but there was a sound in his own voice that he didn't like, didn't want Sam to hear, so he stopped, waiting until he had control before trying again.

"All right, Sam, listen to me. Man, whatever happened tonight, it's done, all right? Spirit fucked with your head, but it's gone. I wasted it, and that evil son of a bitch is never hurting you or anybody else, ever again."

Sam's eyes had locked onto his face, now, begging, beseeching him to make the pain go away, the tiredness, the fear, the past—make it all go away, make the world right again. Make Sam right again. Make him whole. The blade in Dean's heart twisted deeper.

Dean reached out to put a hand against Sam's head, used his thumb to gently erase the furrows in his brother's brow, tried to make his voice soothing even though it felt like shards of glass filled his chest and throat. "You can forget that thing, okay, Sam? Forget it, now. No more thinking tonight, just for a little while, just so you can get some sleep. No dreams, man. No nightmares, no worries. I'm going to be right here, Sam, and I promise you—I _promise_ you that I will keep you safe. But you've got to help me, okay? No thinking, and no dreaming, and no remembering…just for a little while." Dean watched Sam's eyelids droop and felt him sag just a little more in his cocoon of blankets.

"Dean, that thing. I don't think--"

"No, no, no. I said no thinking. Plenty of time for that in the morning. Come on—atta boy, shift this way just a little." It didn't take much encouragement for Sam to collapse sideways onto the pillow, and Dean lifted his brother's bare legs up onto the bed, pulling the blankets down over them, tucking Sam in tight.

""M not four, Dean," Sam murmured thickly, and Dean smiled.

"So no Lucky Charms for you in the morning--I got it."

In moments Sam was deeply asleep, and Dean sank down on his own bed, buried his head in his hands, wondered how he could have failed his brother so badly tonight. He tried hard to stay sharp, to be vigilant, almost to the point of exhaustion, but tonight he'd made the same bad mistake twice. He hadn't been with Sam…hadn't been with…hadn't….Christ, how could he have left him alone?

Dean rocketed up from the bed, horrified that he'd almost drifted off to sleep himself. He grabbed the salt can, liberally lining the door and window sills—knew it was crazy, because he'd torched the bones himself—then went into the bathroom to scrub his face in cold water. He picked up Sam's dirty clothes and stuffed them into the laundry bag they shared—he'd hit the coin-op tomorrow, that was for damn sure. Checked his brother again to make sure he was still sleeping peacefully. Out like the proverbial light.

"I will keep you safe," Dean whispered, and in his sleep, Sam sighed.

-:- -:- -:-

The rustle of paper woke him, and Sam opened his eyes to see Dean seated in the chair by the window, still wearing his mud-stained clothes from the night before, intent on one of the reference books they carried among their gear. Their father's journal lay open on the table nearby, next to the laptop and the sheaf of newspaper articles they had collected about the Palmer Theater. Daybreak had begun to brighten the windows.

A faint smile tugged at Sam's mouth. Dean was not exactly a morning person, and that he was even awake at this hour meant that he'd never gone to bed. Dean pulled all-nighters for only three reasons: fucking, hunting, and watching over Sam. He'd spent his life doing a lot of each.

Taking a rare moment just to enjoy feeling warm and secure, Sam watched his brother's face as he read, scratching absently at the stubble on his jaw. The smile tugged a little bit harder as Sam remembered the countless other mornings he'd woken up just this way, when he was sick or hurt, with Dean having looked after him through the night. Hell, with the exception of those few years at Stanford, they'd shared a room every night of Sam's life. Dean was a quicksilver constant—an unpredictable enigma to others, but to Sam a pole-star, steady and invariable and perpetual.

The pole-star turned the page and shifted in his seat, rubbing a hand over one side of his ribcage as he read, frowning thoughtfully.

"Hey," Sam said finally, voice soft.

"Hey." Dean closed the book with a snap and tossed it carelessly onto the table, straightening up in the chair and rubbing two fingers into his left eye to wipe away the tiredness there. "How you feeling?"

"Stupid." Sam sat up with a groan, lay right back down again. "Man, Dean, whatever that thing was last night, it just sapped all the energy out of me."

"Yeah, that's not all it sapped out of you," his brother replied sardonically.

"Ha ha. Look, man, I've never felt anything like that before. Totally messed with my head. It was strong, and it was mad, and freezing cold, and, uh…passionate."

"Passionate, huh? Dude, that old stagehand was, like, sixty when he died. How much passion could the sick bastard have left?"

Sam sat up again, tugged the blankets closer around him in the room's early-morning chill. "I don't think it was your standard-issue spirit, Dean. It felt different, almost primal."

"But you said last night you didn't think it was a succubus or an incubus."

"And I still don't think it was. Those are physical creatures—their interactions with people have a corporeal component to them. Dean, this thing was like a force, not like anything solid. I felt it, but it never touched….dude, what happened with the salt?"

Heaps of the stuff lay piled against the door and lined the sills of the room's two windows. Dean sniffed, shrugged, chose not to answer. Sam grinned and climbed to his feet, dragging the blankets with him, heading for the bathroom and the stack of clean clothes still lying on the sink counter. Grinned wider at the line of salt in that doorway, too. "So, did you find anything in the books or online?" he called as he dressed.

"Well, if you're sure it wasn't Stan the Stagehand, there are a couple of other possibilities. Old Hag, of course—"

"No no no, that doesn't fit, either. People have Old Hag experiences when they're lying down, when they're asleep. This thing threw me into the wall."

"All right, then, something stronger. Inuus, maybe?"

Jeans on but still shirtless, Sam stuck his head out of the bathroom, looked at his brother like he was crazy. "The Roman god of sexual intercourse? What would he be doing in Iowa, Dean?"

"'Cause that's where the tall corn grows," Dean retorted with sarcasm. "And how is it that you know he's the god of sexual intercourse, Sammy? That the kind of thing they're teaching at Stanford these days?"

"Shut up. What else?" Sam had finished dressing, and sat on the end of his bed to pull on his boots.

"Well, I don't know, Sam, unless it was the Demon Playmate of the Month." Dean's tone was suddenly sharp. "There was a shadow, and it looked sort of like a person, and when I used the silver crucifix on it, it vanished. You tell _me_ what it was."

"What's _that_ about?" Sam asked, surprised by his brother's abrupt change in attitude. "Are you pissed at me?"

"What? No, I—" Dean ran a hand over his face and back through his hair, took a deep breath. "Look, I don't know what the hell that thing was, Sam. It had you up against the wall, turned you into a block of ice, did whatever the hell it did to you—then I get back from the graveyard and you're sitting in a cold shower…." His voice trailed off, and Sam finished for him, his tone gentle as he finally understood his brother's sudden temper.

"You thought it had come back for me, and you were afraid for me. Mad that you'd left me by myself. But, Dean, you couldn't have known how I'd react after what happened at the theater. _I_ didn't know."

"Yeah, well, I should've known, Sam. I _did_ know. You were vulnerable, and I _knew _that, and I still left you alone."

Dean shoved himself up out of the chair, thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, pacing the room to avoid meeting Sam's eyes. "Something did something to you last night—I don't know what the hell—but I thought it was done, it was over. Then I leave you alone and you're still…." He stopped, his back to Sam.

"Dean." Sam wasn't sure whether he should apologize or give his brother atonement, so he went for explanation instead. "There was aftermath, man. Reaction. That's all. What happened to me, what I felt, was pretty intense. I needed some time to cope with it, to recover. And like I told you, it messed with my head."

Dean finally turned to look at him, clearing his throat. "Man, I just thought it was over, you know?"

There were a thousand emotions in Dean's green eyes, anger and apology and self-reproach at the fore, crowded close by doubt and pain and failure. Ghosts of memory flitted around the room suddenly—the echo of their father's voice (_watch out for Sam_); the more recent sound of Sam's own voice (_watch out for me, Dean_)—and Sam sighed, knowing there was nothing he could do but let this one go. Dean conducted his own tribunals, and he was a harsh judge.

_Have mercy, Dean,_ Sam thought. _Please show yourself some mercy._

"Look," he said quietly. "I'm fine, okay? It's done, and I'm fine, and you're fine, too. That's the important thing."

Grabbing a pillow from the bed, Sam tossed it at his brother. "But, dude, you know that if you're going to look after me, you've got to do the job right, right?"

Dean looked at Sam askance, and the younger Winchester shook his head disapprovingly. "Seriously, man, you've got to stop slacking off. Where's my coffee?"

Sam grinned widely as Dean threw the pillow back, hard.

"Screw you, Sam. Get your own damn coffee!"

-:- -:- -:-

Dean caught a quick nap while Sam went out to find breakfast. After, it was Sam's idea to interview the one cast-member of 'Rochester Romp' they had yet to meet, although technically she was no longer a cast-member.

"Dean, the woman who played Nanny shared that dressing room with Geneva," he said. "And she quit the show right before it's scheduled to open. Maybe something happened, or maybe she saw something. The least we can do is ask."

"I'm telling you, man, Stan the Stagehand is no longer a problem."

Sam shifted impatiently. "Yeah, I know, and I'm telling you that I don't think that Stan was the problem. Dean, whatever that was last night did _not_ feel like just your average spirit, or some run-of-the-mill poltergeist. We don't know what it was—and you said yourself there were orbs in the costume shop. Orbs, Dean. Plural. I'd just feel better if we covered all the bases on this one."

"Come on, Sammy, 'fess up. You'd just like to cover all of _Geneva_'s bases. Second, third, maybe home…." Getting only Sam's deadpan glance in return, Dean pursed his lips, then grabbed the Impala's keys off the dresser.

"All right," he said. "Let's go find Nanny."

-:- -:- -:-

Ida Monroe was a retired elementary-school teacher, with wild white hair that made her head look like the geodesic dome of a dandelion clock, and a recipe for oatmeal cookies that were so damn good Sam wondered if she'd made a deal with the Devil. Ida had been a staple with the Burlberg Players for years, before Daniel, before Zandra and Randall, even. In fact, she had played Sharon Palmer's mother in the company's very first show.

"So, uh, Ida." Dean had locked gazes with the woman's Chihuahua, a bug-eyed, shivering, hairless rat named Skunky, which had planted itself three feet in front of him, snarling like a soprano chainsaw, lips curled back from pink gums and pointy shark-teeth, saliva puddling on the laminate floor beneath it. Dean couldn't make himself look away, even when Sam snickered from the relative safety of the rocking chair across the room, a plate of cookies on his lap, one clutched half-eaten in his hand like manna from heaven. Ida didn't seem to notice that there might be a problem with the dog.

Dean cleared his throat and tried again, eyes widening as Skunky's snarl rose a note higher on the scale and Sam choked back a laugh. "What happened with you and the theater company? You quit the play after more than a month of rehearsal, just a week before it's going to open."

Ida handed Sam his glass of milk and sank down into an overstuffed armchair, so that the three of them made points of a triangle, Skunky its exact center.

"It hurt me to do that, boys, it truly did," she said, her sorrowful expression matching her words. "Those people are like my family…have been for years. And acting—well, I always did get such a kick out of it! Oh, I could tell you stories!"

Dean was pretty sure he couldn't take any more theater stories, and he finally tore his eyes away from the dog to look at their hostess. "So, you didn't have a falling-out with anyone? Or maybe you thought the play was—I don't know—boring?"

Alert blue eyes examined the brothers closely for a moment, and Sam was suddenly quite sure that order had _always_ reigned in Mrs. Monroe's fifth-grade classroom. He watched her weigh the difference between airing her 'family's' dirty laundry, and coming clean with the truth about something that had meant a great deal to her. He did his best to look extremely trustworthy.

"I quit the show because of that place," Ida announced finally, and both Winchesters cocked their heads slightly, eyebrows rising.

"Excuse me?" they said in unison.

"The theater, the new space." She clutched her elbows with age-spotted hands, pulled them in close to her. "Sharon poured everything she had into it, bringing it back to its original glory, but it was never quite—" she paused, searching for words— "never quite _right_. Got the chills the moment I set foot in it, all dark and shadowy, for all the lights she had installed."

"Was there something wrong with the building somehow, or the land it was built on?" Sam asked, catching the look on Dean's face and quickly wiping the milk moustache off his upper lip.

Ida shook her head. "You mean, was it built on an old battlefield or a graveyard or something like that. No, not at all, at least so far as I know. It's just that doing Sharon's grandfather's play, the same one they'd opened the theater with back in 1927, was just ghoulish, if you ask me. Wouldn't have mattered if we were still performing at the high school, but at the Palmer…." She shuddered, and Sam and Dean exchanged glances. "I could just _feel_ those poor people who died there; feel them watching, listening. Then Daniel brought that psychic in, and she felt them, too."

Dean shifted in his seat on the couch, causing Skunky to growl with renewed intensity, eyes popping, left front leg lifted from the floor, whether to spring or to keep it out of the growing lake of drool, Dean wasn't sure. The older Winchester froze, caught up again in the staring-contest with the dog, and Sam continued the questioning.

"Ida, did you see anything? Shapes, perhaps, or something like fog or smoke?"

"Didn't have to see anything to know they were there," she said firmly. "Lights flickering, doors banging, things going missing. They didn't _want_ us there, it was plain to see, even without seeing, if you take my meaning. As time went on, things got worse, got darker and scarier, until I couldn't take it any more. There's just something ominous about the Palmer, something _wrong_—never been so scared of a place in my life, and I'm not one to believe in hocus-pocus, you may believe me! I don't know that I'll ever set foot in that theater ever again."

Her dandelion hair quivered around her head as she met their eyes, the tears that brimmed in her own eyes telling them she meant every word. For a moment, Sam stopped chewing, sat open-mouthed until Ida suddenly blinked, seeming to notice the dog for the first time.

"Why, Dean," she said, "I think Skunky likes you! He doesn't take to many people. Sam, would you like some more cookies? How about a nice slice of peach pie?"

-:- -:- -:-

After leaving Ida's, they went back to the Palmer Theater. Daniel Jones had announced the previous evening that he and Hallie wouldn't arrive until six, and the actors' call wasn't until seven, which gave the Winchesters nearly the whole day to poke around in the vacant building.

It was easier to break into a place at night, in the dark; Burlberg was a small town, but the traffic on Main Street was fairly constant, and the diner across the alley apparently did a thriving early-lunch business. Nevertheless, the brothers made it in through the side door in short order, finding everything as they had left it the night before, ghost-light still burning dimly from mid-stage. Once again, Sam held the EMF meter, but this time Dean was armed with the crucifix rather than the camera.

Through unspoken agreement, they began their search in the dressing-room hallway, in Geneva's space at the far end, Sam working hard not to hesitate as they entered, Dean's face grim as he held the crucifix out before them. There was nothing—no cold spot, no smell of rosemary or vanilla or _(sex) _anything. No trace of sulfur, nothing of spirit or demon or creature, nothing to indicate that anything happened in the room at all except that an actress used it to prepare for her performance. Dean breathed a muted sigh of relief, quirked his lips slightly when he heard Sam do the same.

The costume shop was also quiet, with no trace of the orbs Dean had seen.

"Told you I got the damn thing," the older Winchester said. "Place is clean, Sam."

Sam put his hands on his hips, thinking, still not satisfied. "There were those two seats in the balcony," he said finally. "Let's go check those out."

-:- -:- -:-

The balcony space was relatively small, but they split up anyway, each starting in the middle, Sam moving up the narrow aisle while Dean moved down, senses alert for anything unusual.

Dean had roamed through three rows of seats when something crunched beneath the sole of his boot, and he stepped back cautiously, turning the flashlight beam to the carpet beneath him. Something small and flat and round—he stooped to pick it up.

"Sam, what were those p—"

Invisible hands shoved him from behind, almost sending him to his knees before he caught himself on the back of a seat. Dean whirled—felt the frigid air, smelled the rosemary, but saw nothing before he was shoved again, stumbled back, lost his balance landing wrong on a step, heard Sam shout before he was shoved a third time and felt the balcony rail against the backs of his thighs. He tried to grab at it, but the momentum and the balance and his center-point were all wrong. This time the thing didn't just push, but _lifted_ him up and backward, catapulting him off the balcony into mid-air, arms windmilling, body contorting as he fell like a stone to the theater floor below.

Sam heard the sickening thud, his brother's cry abruptly silenced, and dove over the seat-backs to the balcony edge, nearly going over the rail himself when he reached it.

"Dean!" He screamed his brother's name, stabbed the beam of the flashlight downward, frantically searching, his heart pounding so loud in his ears that he couldn't even hear his own voice as he cried out again. Saw Dean crumpled on his side about halfway down the aisle, body twisted, head cushioned on one upflung arm, one foot resting awkwardly on a seat-bottom. Saw Dean not moving. Looking broken. Looking dead. The silver crucifix lay beside him, gleaming faintly in the beam from Sam's flashlight.

Sam fled the balcony, hurtled down the stairs and through the lobby, into the theater, dropping to his knees at his brother's side, his breath gasping and panicked so that he couldn't tell whether Dean was even breathing at all.

"Dean?" Sam laid a tentative hand on his brother's shoulder, afraid to touch him, afraid of what he might find, finally felt for a pulse at Dean's neck—_oh thank God_—found it thready and rapid, but found it. Ran his hands along the length of Dean's spine and uppermost arm and leg, seat-bottom snapping upright when Sam gently removed Dean's booted foot from it—no blood, no visible bones—then cradled his brother's head in one trembling hand while turning him onto his back. Still no blood, pupils reactive to the flashlight's beam, Dean just unconscious, out cold.

_Jesus, how? Not hurt? Not possible! How how (miracle) how?_ Sam shoved the doubt away roughly, held his breath and leaned over to listen to Dean's chest. Odd sounds, there, and when Sam cautiously put his hands against his brother's ribs, he knew why.

Dean gave a great, heaving gasp and choked his way back to consciousness, dry coughs wracking his body as he clutched wildly for Sam's hands, cried out as the broken ribs shifted.

"Sonofabitch!" he moaned between gritted teeth, eyes frantic and bright with pain as more hacking coughs shook him. Dean wrapped his arms tight around his body, panting rapidly as Sam sought to calm him.

"Easy, Dean! Easy—I'm right here. Lie still."

"C-Can't breathe. Hurts," his brother gasped, face contorting as he coughed again.

Sam helped steady him against the floor. "Dean, stop moving. You broke some ribs, and I think you might have punctured a lung. I'm calling 9-1-1."

"Ohnononono," Dean's eyes sought his, and Sam flinched at the agony in them. "Th-that thing, S-S-Sam. Get us…out of here."

"Dean, I'm not moving you! The crucifix is right here and—"

"No good, Sammy. It's n-no good."

The lobby curtain opened suddenly, light flaring in from the daylight outside, and Sharon Palmer appeared at the top of the aisle. "What's going on here?" she asked, voice quavering. "Sam? Is that you? How did you get in here?"

"Sharon! Thank God! My partner's hurt, and we need an ambulance."

"What?" She moved hesitantly into the theater, reaching for the light-switches and flooding the space with pale white light from the wall sconces. "What happened?"

Another fit of coughing left Dean gasping and ashen, and Sam fumbled for his cell phone, somehow more frightened now than when he'd seen Dean flung off the balcony, more than when he'd seen him lying crumpled and still on the theater floor.

"He—he's got severe asthma, and I think his lung has collapsed. I've got to get him to the hospital, and I can't move him by myself."

"Please wait!" Sharon ran down the aisle to them. "I can get help—just please don't call 9-1-1!"

Sam looked up at her, brows drawn together by anger and confusion and fear. "Why not? He needs medical attention!"

She took the phone from him, punched in numbers rapidly. "Philip? It's Sharon. I'm at the theater and one of the men from that magazine needs help. He's having trouble breathing—can you come?" She paused, listening. "No, no—bring your bag, and bring the wagon around to the loading dock. I don't want it on the street where everyone can see it. You know the gossip would kill us."

Glaring darkly, Sam grabbed the phone from her, turned away and lowered his voice, although he knew that she could hear him plainly. "Philip, it's Sam. Dean can't breathe. He fell, and I think he's got some broken ribs—maybe more injuries. There a stretcher in the wagon? Yes, he's conscious. Coughing a lot. Says it hurts to breathe, and he can't…. All right—No, I'm not moving him. He's flat on the floor. Yes. Yes. Please hurry."

He closed the phone and stashed it quickly in his pocket, held Dean down by both shoulders as yet another paroxysm of coughing shook his brother harshly.

"Hang on, Dean," he murmured. "Help's coming. Stay with me, man."

Dean's eyes were rolling up into his head, and Sam worried he was going into shock.

"Go open the door to the loading dock!" he snapped at Sharon. "Philip's going to be here in a minute. Help him bring the stretcher in."

She gave a tiny cry at his vehemence, then hurried to do as he ordered.

"'S all right, Sammy," Dean croaked. "Not…her fault. God, that hurts!" He tried to shift to his side, to ease the pain that screamed sharply through his ribs and chest, but Sam held him down.

"You can't move, Dean—don't! You could do more damage. I know it hurts, but you've got to lie still."

Dean tried to laugh, began coughing again, reached up until Sam grabbed his hand and gripped it firmly.

"You know how…I h-hate flying, S-S-Sammy."

Sam blinked fiercely, forcing a smile although he was certain his brother's unfocused eyes couldn't see. "It's the landing that counts, Dean. I don't know how you did it. I thought you'd be pancaked, man, or draped over three rows of seats."

"Tuck and…roll, Sammy. M-m-missed the…fucking arm of that…chair… by an inch. Oh, fuckohGod!" Agony etched deep lines in Dean's face, and his hold on Sam's hand was fierce.

"It's okay, it's okay," Sam said, fighting against the horrific knot in his own chest. "Help's almost here—just stay with me, Dean. Please hold on."

"I'm…not dying here…S-Sam."

Sam felt his stomach drop, his knees turn to jelly. "What? No, of course you're not! I'm not letting you die, Dean. You know that!"

The anguish on Sam's face hurt even worse than the white-hot pain searing through his chest, and Dean struggled to ease his brother's fears.

"D-d-dork. M-meant that…'mgonna be okay. This isn't…the w-way…I'm going out."

The last words were strangled as Dean fought to draw air into his tortured chest, wheezed and coughed and tried damn hard to tell Sam it was going to be all right. They were both going to be all right. If only he could breathe.

There was sudden activity behind the set, and then Philip and Sharon maneuvered a collapsible stretcher onto the stage and across to the steps leading down into the house. Philip grabbed his medical bag off the stretcher and hurried up the aisle toward the Winchesters, already planting his stethoscope in his ears as he gently but quickly moved Sam aside and knelt next to Dean. He listened to Dean's racing heart and gasping lungs, frowning slightly, then tapped his fingers against the older Winchester's chest in several locations, head cocked, intent on what he could hear and feel.

"Those look normal," he said, flashing his penlight into Dean's eyes, noting pupillary response. "You said he fell?"

"From the balcony," Sam said, voice hushed as he watched the pain play across Dean's bloodless face. Dean's jaw was clenched, his eyes now squeezed shut as he battled for breath.

Philip looked up at Sam in alarm, eyes cutting to the balcony above and several yards distant. "How the hell—" He seemed to think better of the question and fell silent, returned to the job of treating his patient. His practiced hands probed Dean's ribs, evoking a groan and another fit of coughing, then moved along Dean's limbs as he searched for more broken bones.

"All right," he said finally. "I think at least three ribs are cracked or broken, and there's the pneumothorax, of course. We'll have to take a chest X-ray to see whether there's a puncture, but the right lung is definitely deflated, so we're dealing with a partial collapse, at best. I'd also like to test his arterial blood gas. I don't see signs of hypoxia, but that could be coming, and I may need to put a chest tube in him. Let's get him to the clinic right now."

Philip turned to Sharon, who still stood beside the stretcher at the edge of the stage, wringing her hands and watching them fearfully. "Sharon, get the backboard out of the wagon. Move! Sam, get the stretcher, please."

By the time they had gotten Dean into the backboard and onto the stretcher, all four of them were sweating and testy. Dean hovered on the edge of unconsciousness, his heart galloping, his breathing fast and shallow and pained, and Philip used an ambu bag to ventilate him.

Over Sharon's timid protests, Sam had driven the wagon—a modified van Philip used as both an ambulance and his personal transportation—into the alleyway. It took only a minute, but the time apart from Dean in his present condition was almost more than Sam could bear.

"I don't give a damn who might see this, Sharon, or what kind of stories might be spread about things happening in your theater," Sam said, lips tight with anger as the woman looked apprehensively up and down the alley. Sharon had the grace to look abashed, but Sam didn't regret his harshness.

"Philip, should I drive?" he asked. "Do you need to be with him, or can I?"

"Medical center's only a few blocks from here, Sam. Where would you rather be, driving or in the back?"

The set of Sam's mouth provided the answer. "Just get us there in a hurry," he said, and Philip handed him the ambu bag, helped him place it over Dean's mouth and nose, showed him how to squeeze it. Sam's face was anguished as he worked air into his brother's lungs, until Dean erupted in coughing again, thrashing at Sam's arms and hands and the bag, and Philip took it back.

"It's okay, Sam—it was just a precaution. We should go."

They took the stretcher out the theater's side door, loading Dean quickly into the back of the van and Sam clambering in beside him.

"I hope he's all right," Sharon Palmer said as she closed the door for them. "Sam, please understand—I'm ruined if anything else goes wrong and people find out about it."

"I'm really sorry for you," Sam said, then turned his back on her as Philip started the engine and drove the van slowly out of the rough alley, turning right onto Main Street before punching the gas and heading swiftly to Burlberg's medical clinic.

Eyes pinned on his brother's pale face, Sam held tight to Dean's hand the entire way.

-:- -:- -:-

_In Chapter 4, there's a death at the theater, and Sam hunts without Dean._


	4. Chapter 4

_**Disclaimer**: "Supernatural" is not mine. This was written completely for fun. _

-:- -:- -:-

Philip shared staff and space in the medical clinic with three other doctors, and they had to wait to get Dean X-rayed, but Philip used the time well, focusing on Dean's medical history and vital signs, putting him on oxygen, conducting an arterial blood gas test and strapping his ribs. The Winchesters had never had much luck with hospitals, but Sam was relieved by how much better Dean was breathing now that he had assistance.

When the X-rays were finally taken and developed, the doctor showed Sam the clear indication of three broken ribs, and the dark area in Dean's chest.

"If his lung were fully inflated, this whole area would be much lighter in the picture," Philip explained, pointing. "And here you see the two new breaks in his ribs, plus this older one. He's lucky one of them didn't puncture the lung."

"What do you mean, an older break?"

Philip shrugged. "Not that much older—a week or so, I'd guess. The bigger issue is the pneumothorax, of course. It's large enough that I don't expect it to correct itself, Sam. Not quickly, anyway."

"What are the options?" Sam asked. He'd definitely take up the old-break issue with his brother when Dean was feeling better.

"It might take several weeks for the air around Dean's lung to be absorbed, but we can speed that up by removing the air from the pleural cavity, here." The doctor indicated a place on the X-ray. "There are two ways to do that—either with a needle and syringe, or by inserting a chest tube. Because of his ribs, I'm a little hesitant to insert a chest tube, but the size of the collapse may preclude the needle option. We need to get him to the hospital in Elverta."

Sam's brow furrowed. "You can't do the procedure here? Dean hates hospitals."

"I understand, and I can treat him here. But he needs to be kept under observation, Sam. You see that we're monitoring his breathing and heart rate, as well as his oxygen saturation, but we don't have the facilities he needs for overnight care. Once we treat him, his lung is probably going to return to normal in three or four days, but his recovery is going to take several weeks. And if I have to use a chest tube, everything could take longer."

"But he's going to be all right." Sam refused to make it a question, and Philip nodded.

"I think so. His breathing is easier, and that should continue to improve as his body adjusts and the lung re-inflates. Dean's a strong guy in good health—non-smoker—so I think his prognosis is pretty good. Especially if he recovers in the hospital. We've already called for medical transport to Elverta."

Philip hesitated, watching Sam's face as he processed the situation, throat working, looking suddenly much younger than his years. The change was only momentary, however, and Sam drew in a quick, full breath, in charge of himself once again.

"All right—let's get moving."

-:- -:- -:-

"Man, you can't just ditch me here! At least leave me the car!" Dean pleaded, his voice ragged. He had improved visibly since Philip had used a needle and syringe to remove the extra air from around his lung—the coughing had stopped, and some color had returned to his face—but he was now confined to a hospital bed thirty miles from Burlberg, hooked to a variety of monitors, with no prospect of going anywhere for the next several days. Plus, he'd missed lunch and dinner.

"Dean, the doctor said you're lucky you didn't puncture a lung, which could have killed you. I _still_ don't understand why you're not dead, after the fall you took." Sam's glare did little to hide his relief that his brother would be all right.

"Pardon me for living, Marcus Welby," Dean groused, too drained to carry the argument further, and Sam rolled his eyes.

"That's not what I meant, Dean, and you know it. But you're in no shape to go anywhere, and I've got to get back to the theater."

"What? No, Sam. Don't you even think about going back there without me."

"I don't have many options, Dean. In half an hour, they're going to start rehearsal, and that thing is going to be there, and they'll be completely at its mercy."

Dean shook his head determinedly, only slightly hampered by the oxygen cannula in his nose. "Don't let 'em in, Sammy—keep them out of that building. Gas leak, bomb threat, I don't care what the hell you tell them, but you stop that rehearsal until we can figure out what that sonofabitch is and how to get rid of it."

"'The show must go on,'" Sam replied helplessly, spreading his hands wide. "The play opens in a week, Dean, and we're not going to convince those actors that they have to stay out of the theater!"

"Come on, there's got to be something that'll stop them. Tell them that that ghost-light thing exploded, or that there's too much blue in the costumes—whatever the hell, Sam, just stop them."

Sam hesitated. "I could say 'Macbeth.'"

"Huh?"

The younger Winchester waved the idea away with a swipe of his hand. "Never mind—it's superstition. But I've got to get back to Burlberg _now_, Dean—Daniel and Hallie are probably already at the theater, and the others will be getting there soon."

"Dammit." Exhaustion and concern wrote lines in Dean's face as he realized Sam had little choice but to go, and he himself had no choice at all.

"I'll be careful, Dean, and I'll be back." Sam nodded twice, turned on his heel and left the room quickly before Dean could get his second wind, but his brother's angry promise followed him down the hospital corridor.

"I'll take the friggin' bus to come after you if I have to, Sam!"

-:- -:- -:-

Two police cars were pulled up at the Palmer Theater, light-bars flashing, and a small crowd had collected on the sidewalk near the ticket kiosk when Sam arrived.

"What's going on?" he asked a woman who was watching from the diner doorway.

"There's been some kind of an accident with one of the actors," she said, her voice low. "It just happened a few minutes ago. Don't know how or who, but I heard somebody died."

Without thinking to thank her, Sam pushed his way through the crowd and into the theater, making his way swiftly into the auditorium. Saw three men in police uniforms talking with Philip around a still, sheet-covered form at center-stage. Counted other noses—Geneva crying in Daniel's arms; Sharon clutching her elbows to her, looking stricken; Zandra, Randall and Topher a grave trio at the right-side wing; and Hallie, standing alone and frozen with her book-bag held to her chest like a protective shield. Which left Carl, the man who played the butler. The man who now lay dead on the stage.

Sam watched as Philip and the officers looked up into the fly-space over the stage, noting the lighting catwalk there.

"First losing his wife, now getting the cancer himself, I don't blame him," one of the officers said. "Could think of better ways of doing it, though, to get the job done. That's not so far to jump, and he might just have broken his leg instead of his neck."

"Look, Pete, a man has died," Philip said testily. "Can we not armchair quarterback his suicide, please? A little respect. Come on, let's get him out to the wagon, and I'll take him over to Jackson's."

"Oh, Sam!" Geneva pulled away from Daniel and ran to him, clasping him tight around the waist, tears streaking her pale face. "Sam, Carl's dead! Killed himself, just a few minutes ago. It was awful!"

"I'm so sorry." Sam held her close. "Are you all right? Did you see it?"

She shook her head against him. "No, rehearsal hadn't started, and only about half of us were even here. We were all backstage when Carl came out front—all except Hallie. I guess she was out here."

"Hallie saw him commit suicide?" Sam jerked his attention back to the stage, past the doctor and the police loading Carl's body onto the stretcher, saw Hallie still shocked and unmoving, clutching the book-bag to her. "My God, is she all right?"

"What? Oh, I don't know. I guess he almost hit her—knocked her stuff all over the floor." Geneva wiped away her tears with the back of a hand. "I think Philip heard the crash, and then we heard her scream. By the time we came out, Carl was dead and she was scrabbling all over the stage like a crazy person, picking up all that junk she carries in that damnable bag. Sam, this is just so shocking…."

Philip conferred briefly with Daniel, then began escorting the police and the body out the theater's side door into the alley, where his van was waiting. Catching sight of Sam, he paused and jerked his chin at the younger Winchester.

"Sam!" he called. "I'm going to want to talk with you later." Then he followed the police into the alley and was gone.

"All right, people," Daniel said, clapping his hands in a half-hearted attempt to get everyone's attention. "Obviously that's the end of rehearsal for tonight. I want you all to go home and take care of yourselves after this tragic, tragic event. Say a prayer for Carl, help his soul on its homeward journey. I need to think about what to do next, but I want you to know that the show _will_ go on, and we _will_ open this coming Friday. Rehearsal tomorrow will be at the usual time, and we all need to come ready to work hard. All right? All right. Then go home, have a drink, take a hot bath, whatever, just—go home."

Taking his direction, they began moving, then, collecting their things and drifting in shock out of the theater.

"Take me home, Sam?" Geneva tugged at his sleeve. "It's been such a terrible night, I don't want to be by myself."

Hallie still stood on the stage as though rooted there, and Sam watched her with concern, Geneva following his glance, tugging at his shirt again.

"Sam, please!"

"Geneva!" Daniel called. "Are you ready to go? Come on, I'll take you. Hallie—oh, Hallie, there you are. You're all right, aren't you? And you'll lock up?"

The girl nodded dumbly, eyes round and hollow, and Sam wasn't at all sure that she understood what Daniel had asked her.

"I'll stay with her," he offered, then heard Geneva's _tsk_ of impatience.

"Fine," she said. "Daniel, I'm ready. Let's get out of here."

She gave Sam a baleful look. "Sam," she said, as though tasting his name. "Is that short for 'Samaritan'? Suits you."

Taking Daniel's proffered arm, Geneva draped it around her shoulders and burrowed in close to the director's side.

"What a terrible, terrible night," Sam heard her say as they made their way up the aisle and out of the theater.

-:- -:- -:-

Sam had learned to use his 'gentle' voice to full advantage, knowing that its softness and sincerity helped people feel safe with him, open up to him.

"Hallie, did you see what happened to Carl? Can you tell me?"

The girl was trembling, eyes filled with tears as she fumbled nervously with the red macramé belt, now almost finished. Sam had seated her in the front row, took his place beside her, body angled toward hers, ready to meet her gaze if ever she looked up from her lap.

"I don't know," she murmured. "Rehearsal hadn't even started, and half the cast wasn't here yet. Daniel was giving Geneva some notes back in her dressing room again—" Hallie's voice caught briefly, but at last she was able to continue. "I don't know where Philip was. Carl came out and said he needed to check his blocking, and I was just going to help him find the right spot in my copy of the scri—"

From somewhere behind them, a seat banged down suddenly, flipping back up and bouncing squeakily on its springs.

Hallie shrieked, bolting into Sam's arms as they both stood abruptly, burying her face against his shirt front, sobbing. Sam held her protectively as he scanned the empty rows, identifying the seat that had moved, but seeing nothing that might have moved it.

"Shh, shh, it's all right," he soothed, hoping his voice sounded calmer than he felt.

After a moment, she quieted, sniffling against his chest. "—smudged," he thought she said, but the rest of her words were unintelligible.

Still alert for signs of the entity, Sam stroked a hand down her long hair. "I'm sure your makeup's fine, Hallie," he said distractedly. "Look, there's nobody in the theater besides us, but we can go outside if you want."

She nodded against him, then pulled away to collect her book-bag, wiping the tears from her cheeks with quick swipes of a hand.

"I need to turn off the lights and lock up," she said, voice quavering. "Will you come with me?"

"Of course."

They made quick work of the tasks, but Hallie looked ready to bolt any time Sam strayed from her side, especially when they prepared to put the ghost-light on the stage.

"This is where he landed," she whispered, staring at the spot on the floor, unable to let go of the light-pole until Sam gently prized it from her hands and set it upright, switching on the incandescent bulb before taking Hallie's elbow and guiding her toward the side door.

"You're very nice, Sam," she said meekly as they stepped out into the alley, the door swinging shut behind them. "I can see why Geneva likes you."

On the stage, the ghost-light flickered twice, then died.

-:- -:- -:-

They went for coffee, sat in the Impala to drink it, Hallie pressed into the corner of the front seat and passenger door, looking terrified and lost. Sam sat behind the wheel, upper body turned toward her, his right arm stretched out along the seat-back, offering compassion and closeness but not touching her, giving her the space she appeared to need.

"Hallie, you said Carl was looking for his blocking? That's the notes you take about where and when he's supposed to move onstage, right?"

She bobbed her head. "He went down into the house to the front row where my stuff was. I hadn't unpacked my book-bag yet, so I wanted to get my notebook with the script for him. I'd been putting curtains in that undressed window, and I started to go down the side steps—"

A fresh wave of tears choked her eyes and throat, and the coffee cup shook suddenly in her hand. Sam moved quickly to take it from her before the hot liquid spilled out.

"I know it's hard," he said gently, "but please try. You have to talk with someone, Hallie."

"You'll think I'm crazy," she sobbed, hiding her face in her hands.

"No. No, Hallie, I promise I won't think that. Tell me." Sam captured her left wrist in a soft grip and applied the slightest pressure, coaxing her toward him. Hiccupping, she responded by sliding along the seat, Sam mirroring her approach until they met in the middle and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

"Nothing's going to hurt you now—you're safe here, I promise," he told her. "Now tell me what happened."

Her face was pressed against his chest, and Hallie spoke to his shirt buttons. "He—he had opened my book-bag and pulled out a notebook. And then…oh, God, I _must_ be crazy! I can't have seen that!"

"Hallie? Hallie." Sam put a finger under her chin and lifted her face up to him. "You're not crazy. What did you see?"

Tears still flowed freely down her cheeks as she spoke. "Suddenly he was just flying through the air onto the stage, and my book-bag was still in his hands. And then he was lying on the stage, with my stuff scattered all around him. Then somehow he was in the air again, like something just picked him up and held him for a moment before throwing him back down again, and I heard…I heard a snap, and I could see he was dead. Oh, Sam, he didn't jump from the catwalk. Something killed him right before my eyes, but there wasn't anything there!"

It was a long time before Sam was able to finally calm her.

-:- -:- -:-

Geneva called him while he was on the road to the hospital, her tone suddenly full of acid when Sam told her he'd just taken Hallie home.

"I'm sure it was terrible for her, Sam," she said brusquely. "She's far too immature to handle something like that well. After all, she brought her doll to the theater just last week. Look, I'm upset, too—Carl was an old family friend—so I'm in need of a little comforting myself. Adult comfort, which I was hoping to get from you. Now I'm just tired and I'm going to bed. Call me in the morning if you think you can deal with a grown woman, Sam. Good night."

She hung up before Sam could say another word.

-:- -:- -:-

It seemed that Dean's breathing was easier, although even in the darkened room, Sam thought he still looked pale, skin almost transparent, lashes a dark fringe against colorless cheeks, his mouth slightly open, hands limp at his sides as he slept.

As if sensing his brother's presence, Dean stirred, eyes fluttering, then came awake with a start, struggling momentarily to sit up.

"Dean," Sam called softly from the doorway, moving to the foot of the bed. "It's okay. Take it easy."

The older Winchester relaxed against his pillow, one arm crossing his ribs as he blinked up at Sam, finally bringing him into focus.

"Back so soon?" he croaked, voice rusty.

Sam smiled vaguely. "It's been almost seven hours. It's nearly two in the morning."

More alert now, eyes adjusting to the dim light, Dean read his brother's face. "What is it?" he asked cautiously. "Something happened, didn't it? Are you all right?"

Sam drew in a deep breath, the corner of his mouth twitching upward at Dean's muttered, "Show-off," then sank into the bedside chair, propping his elbows on his thighs and steepling his fingers.

"Sammy? What?"

"Carl died," Sam said, watching Dean's eyebrows fly together. "The older guy, the one playing the butler? Police are calling it a suicide, because of his wife's recent death and the cancer diagnosis. The trauma to his body indicated that he'd fallen from a height. He landed in the middle of the stage and his neck was broken. They're saying he must've jumped from the lighting catwalk."

"Huh. Sounds like Carl had a bumpier landing than I did. Nobody saw anything?"

"Half the cast hadn't arrived yet, and those that had were back in the dressing room area, except Hallie. She was onstage, and saw him die. Dean, he didn't jump—something threw him down right in front of her. She heard his neck snap."

"Holy crap. There any sign of whatever did it?"

"Cops were already there when I got to the theater. The EMF meter didn't pick up anything, and I didn't notice any cold spots."

Dean looked stunned. "Sam, what the hell is going on at that theater?"

"I don't know, man. It doesn't seem to be connected with anybody in particular—you and I were the only two around both times it attacked us, but we weren't there when Carl was killed."

"Whatever the hell it is, it's got free run of the place. It got you back in the dressing room, me in the balcony, and Carl on the stage. That's a lot of territory, Sam."

"Yeah, well, whatever it's doing, it seems to be escalating, Dean. Just like Ida said, it's getting worse. We need to tie things up fast, that's for damn sure, before anybody else gets hurt."

Sam could tell he'd lost his brother's attention by the look of sudden, intense concentration on his face. "Dean. Dean! What is it?"

"Something about what you just said, Sam. What did you--? Aw, hell, there's some piece of the puzzle that we're just missing." Dean ran a tired hand across his eyes, fading fast, and Sam stood up to leave.

"You're exhausted, Dean. You need to get some rest. Me, too. I'm going back to Burlberg—we'll figure it out in the morning."

"You stay clear of that theater until we do, Sammy. I mean it—I don't want you anywhere near that place."

Dean's eyelids drooped, and he melted down into the hospital bed. Sam thought with a pang that his older brother suddenly looked very young and very vulnerable, almost fragile, something Dean hadn't allowed himself to be in a long, long time.

"All right, Dean. You rest easy, and I'll see you in the morning."

"Stay safe." Dean was asleep almost before the words left his lips. Sam paused just a moment longer, watching the muscles in his brother's face and hands relax.

"You too," he whispered. "You stay safe, too, Dean."

-:- -:- -:-

He did the exorcism on his own, knowing it was foolish, accepting the risk because he didn't want anyone else to get hurt. The silver crucifix weighed heavily on the chain around his neck as he held their father's journal before him and recited the words of the ritual, the Latin spieling from his practiced tongue. But when it was done, Sam felt no change in the malevolent pall suffusing the Palmer Theater, and he knew the exercise had been pointless. Collecting his gear, he beat a quick retreat, before…he didn't want to think about before what. Things were already bad enough.

-:- -:- -:-

_In Chapter 5, Dean believes he knows what's manifesting at the Palmer Theater, but the Winchesters have no idea how to kill it. They go after it anyway, because that's what they do. It's the family business._


	5. Chapter 5

_**Disclaimer**: "Supernatural" is not mine. This was written completely for fun. _

**_A/N:_** _Those of you who've taken the time to review know how much I appreciate your feedback--thanks so much for staying with the story and letting me know what works for you and what doesn't. It's true that I wrote this for me, to feed my "Winchester jones," but it's very hard to write in a vacuum. So thanks again for the encouragement and the concrit! _

-:- -:- -:-

Sam spent what remained of the night at the motel in Burlberg, scouring the Internet for ideas about what might be happening at the theater, searching for hits on the cast and crew, on Chauncey Palmer. There was very little information, and nothing at all that struck him as unusual, so at six a.m. he called Bobby Singer for help. Less than pleased at the early wakeup, Bobby nevertheless heard Sam out, but was unable to shed any light on what was manifesting at the theater.

"I think Dean's right," he said. "This is like a jigsaw, and you're missing a vital piece or two. Want me to come down? I could be there by late afternoon."

"Thanks, Bobby, but let me get back to you on that."

"All right, Sam. I'll do some thinking on this one, and if anything comes up, I'll let you know. You boys watch out for yourselves."

-:- -:- -:-

"Dude, you look like crap." They spoke in unison, Sam from the hospital room door, and Dean from his bed. At eight in the morning, Sam had had no sleep, and while most of the color had returned to his brother's face, dark circles shadowed the skin beneath his eyes.

"Thanks," Dean said wryly.

"Nice," was Sam response. "How you feeling?"

"I've been thinking," Dean ignored the question, pushing aside the little bedside table where the jumbled remnants of a tasteless 'soft-foods' breakfast remained. "This thing at the theater sure acts like a vengeful spirit, but we know it can't be Stan the Stagehand, because I burned his ass."

"If it's a vengeful spirit, then it'll have been born out of violent death, and two other people died in the fire back in 1927, so maybe it's one of them."

Dean studied the pulse ox monitor on his left index finger for a moment, finally sighing tiredly. "I gotta tell you, man, I don't think I'm ready to dig up two more sets of bones. What do we know about them?"

"They were the actors playing Geneva's and Christopher's parts, the young love-interests. Both parts of local farming families—his doesn't seem to be around any more, but hers still has some acreage just east of Burlberg. Think I should go talk to them?"

Dean shrugged carefully, mindful of his ribs. "I don't know, man. But if those two crispy actors are what I saw in the costume room, I just didn't get any kind of 'vengeful anger' vibe off the orbs."

"Well, it's got to be _something_, Dean." Tired and frustrated, Sam rose from his chair, began pacing the length of the little room. "I went through everything again last night—the people, the land, the building. In all the history, there's just the fire. Whatever's happening at the Palmer has got to be related to it."

"Cold spots, orbs, flickering lights—that's spirit material, for sure. But this thing is also like a poltergeist, Sam. Slamming doors, knocking flower vases off tables, stealing things—that's pure poltergeist, and you know it. What happened to you, me and Carl—well, I guess that could be either one. But unless we're looking at a spirit _and_ a poltergeist, which is pretty damn rare, then I think what we've got here is something completely different."

"We've seen both of them together before, Dean," Sam reminded his brother softly. "Back in Lawrence. So you know it's possible."

"Yeah, well, this ain't Lawrence, Sammy."

There was a pause, then, as Sam remembered what they'd seen in their old family home, and Dean tried hard not to remember at all. The older Winchester broke the silence, clearing his throat.

"We've got to know more about this sonofabitch thing, Sam. What else was there about it? Something you saw, or something you felt, when it attacked you."

Sam shrugged. "There's not much beyond what I've already told you. It was angry and lustful and violent. And strong."

"All right, now don't think, just answer. Male or female?"

"What?"

"Just tell me! Male or female?"

"Female." Sam gave it another moment, then nodded. "Yeah, Dean, I'd say it definitely had a female energy to it. What are you getting at?"

His brother smiled in triumph. "I'm thinking that what we're dealing with isn't a spirit, but more like a thought-form, Sammy. Connected to somebody at that theater, who's making it manifest itself."

Sam's brow wrinkled as he thought it through. "That could make sense, Dean. Thought-forms arise out of concentrated energy, or a focus on an idea. Actors have to focus on learning their lines, on remembering where to walk and to stand, on staying in character in spite of all kinds of distractions."

"Exactly. So this sonofa—"

"And if it's a thought-form, that would also explain the other thing," Sam added almost timidly, not sure how else to bring up the subject.

Dean eyed him suspiciously. "What other thing?"

"The, uh—well, the exorcism."

"Come again?"

"Before I went back to the motel last night, I dropped by the theater and, um, performed an exorcism. It didn't feel like it worked."

Dean's expression was both sides of a storm, thunderous and thunderstruck. "Sam, what the hell part of 'stay away from the theater' did you not understand?" he asked, voice so low Sam almost couldn't hear him.

"We've already had this conversation, Dean, and you know I had to do it," he said defensively. "This thing killed Carl last night—I had to try something! Those people's lives are in danger."

"I get that, Sammy, I do! And you put _yourself_ in danger, when I specifically told you not to—"

"I don't take orders from you, Dean! Something had to be done, and I did it, all right? You're stuck here in the hospital, so who else is there? Besides, I don't need your permission, and I don't need your approval."

Suddenly aware that he was shouting, Sam backed off, turning away briefly to compose himself. When he turned back, his voice was soft, his expression apologetic.

"Dean, I didn't mean to yell. I'm sorry—I'm just tired. Anyway, nothing happened at the exorcism, and I mean nothing. Not to me, and not to the thing, either. That's why I think you might be right, because an exorcism wouldn't have any effect on a thought-form. And maybe that's why we can't tell whether the silver cross had an impact on it."

His brother was silent for a moment, measuring his response, making Sam wait to see whether the storm had passed.

"So," Dean said finally, "if it's a thought-form, it's got to have traits or something in common with the person who generated it, right? And we just narrowed it down to whatever woman at the theater is angry and lustful and violent and strong. Now, being lustful, that has Zandra written all over it, although why she'd come after you and not me just doesn't track."

"Well, Geneva's pretty forward, too, and it _was_ in her dressing room," Sam offered, glad to be moving on. "I think she and Daniel maybe, uh…well, used her dressing room to…."

Dean cut him off with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"No, I don't think either Zandra or Geneva has any lust to spare for a thought-form—they're keeping it all for themselves. What about the producer, Sharon what's-her-name?"

"Palmer, Dean. Sharon Palmer. I don't think it's her, either. She's terrified of what's happening, and of losing her investment."

"So maybe she generated it, because she wants to protect the place. You know, like it's a ward she set, standing guard."

"And maybe it saw us as threats, because it knew we could get rid of it," Sam suggested, perking up at the possibility.

"Bang-up job we're doing on that." Irritated, Dean pulled the cannula from his nose, took in an experimental breath, coughed and winced, still tossed the cannula on the bedside tray table.

"Dean." There was a note of warning in Sam's voice, but Dean waved him off, growling.

"Where's the benefit in killing Carl, if the theater's supposed to have its big reopening in less than a week?" he asked.

Sam's mouth drew down in a quick frown. "Well, Ida left, and now Carl's gone—could be Sharon's narrowing the group down to a select few?"

"Sam, the woman has been working with this bunch for decades. Why would she decide to bump them off now? No, it's not her. What about that stage-manager chick?"

"Hallie? I told you she was really shook up last night, Dean. Other than that, all I really know about her is stuff Geneva told me."

"Yeah, and Geneva's all over you." Dean grinned salaciously. "Getting any action there yet, buddy boy?"

"Dean." This time it was exasperation in Sam's voice. "When exactly was I supposed to have time for that?"

"Probably doesn't take long for you," Dean replied matter-of-factly, and Sam grimaced, knowing he'd walked right into that one.

"Anyway," he said, "Hallie's definitely the shy type, very conscientious, kind of old-fashioned or earthy or something, but trying hard not to seem like it."

"What do you mean?"

"Last night, she said something about smudging her makeup, but she wasn't wearing any. And it's almost like she wants approval, but is afraid of attention. You saw her—she takes notes frantically during rehearsal, then meekly surrenders them to Daniel when he wants them. She fixes costumes, replaces broken props, does macramé in her spare time, and—"

"Wait, what? What's macramé? Some sort of fitness program?"

Sam couldn't help but smile. "No, it's a craft. You knot cords of jute or ribbon together, and make plant-hangers and purses and belts and stuff."

"Well, you'd be the one to know about that." Dean frowned, picking absently at the tape on the back of his hand, where an IV had been inserted. "Anything else about Hallie?"

Sam shrugged, jamming his hands in his jacket pockets. "That's about it, I guess, except Geneva can't stand her. And I guess Hallie's trying to fight off a cold with apples and Echinacea."

Dean cocked his head suddenly. "So she's tak—"

Philip appeared in the doorway suddenly, wearing his lab-coat, bags under his eyes, expression grim as he nodded a greeting at them. "Sam, I thought I'd find you here. Dean, how are you feeling this morning?"

"You worked your magic, doc, and I'm ready to get out of here if you'll just sign the papers."

Philip put his stethoscope to use and checked Dean's vitals, while Sam stood up and moved to the window, preserving his brother's dignity and giving the doctor room to work.

"Your X-rays from this morning show your lung has nearly fully re-inflated, but no way you're getting out of here any earlier than Monday, short of a miracle."

"I've had those before," Dean muttered.

"Suppose you tell me what happened," Philip said, checking his patient's pupillary response.

Dean pulled back slightly from the penlight's glare in his eyes, his laugh self-mocking.

"Tripped over my own big feet and took a tumble," he replied.

"Off the balcony?"

"Just clumsy, I guess."

"And I suppose Carl just happened to fall clumsily from the lighting catwalk."

Sam turned away from the window. "I thought the police decided he jumped."

"The police don't know about Dean's 'clumsy tumble' just a few hours earlier," the doctor said, voice tight, "although I'm ready to tell them right now."

"Don't do that," Dean cajoled.

"Then you'd better start telling me what's going on."

The brothers exchanged a look, and Philip crossed his arms over his chest, waiting.

"Look," Sam said finally, taking the lead. "There's been some weird stuff happening at the theater, right? Stuff that's making everybody a little nervous, stuff that can't just be explained away?"

Philip frowned. "You're talking about the lights and noises and things going missing. Enough so that Daniel brought in that ridiculous psychic."

"Yeah, well, the psychic might not have been so ridiculous after all. Dean and I think there's an entity at the Palmer, something evil. It attacked me, it attacked Dean, and we think that now it's responsible for Carl's death."

A crease appeared between the doctor's eyebrows. "An entity? What, like a ghost or something?"

"Maybe. Probably not—we don't think it's your garden variety spirit or poltergeist," Dean replied. "Right now we think it might be a thought-form of some kind. We could really use your help in figuring out who's responsible for it so we can get rid of it."

"I don't believe this," Philip said with a shaky laugh. "Sharon told me that calling in a psychic was just Daniel's idea for a publicity stunt, which she agreed to against her better judgment. It was all a fake. There's no such thing as ghosts or poltergeists. You're crazy."

"Again, maybe, and probably not," Sam said. "Philip, you know there's something going on—hell, this thing, whatever it is, tried to kill Dean, and it _did_ kill Carl. We've got to stop it before anybody else gets hurt."

Philip looked stunned as he processed what he'd just heard, then shook his head. "No, no, no. I'm a scientist, and this just flies in the face of everything rational. I'm going to have to see something with my own eyes before I believe it."

Dean shot Sam a look. "It's not like it's an angel or something freaky like that, doc. And we _have_ seen it. Well, not this one exactly, but things like it. We think. Except we aren't really sure what it is, which makes it hard—"

Sam cut him off. "Philip, I get that you're skeptical. I appreciate that. But think about it—you examined Carl's body yourself. There was severe traumatic injury, right? His neck was broken. How did that happen?"

"Well, if he jumped from the catwalk…."

"You're a trained physician, Philip. Had he seemed suicidal to you last night? Was he the type to kill himself that way, in the middle of a rehearsal, doing something he loved?"

Even more uneasy now, Philip rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. "Actually, I thought he'd just gone out to check his blocking notes in the master script. I'm not sure how he'd have gotten up onto the catwalk in such a short amount of time."

"Exactly." Sam snapped his fingers. "And if he didn't jump or fall from the catwalk, then how could he have broken his neck? His body was in the middle of the stage, with no sign that he tripped over anything."

Philip huffed a troubled laugh. "Are you asking me to believe that Hallie hit him with something hard enough to do that?"

"What? No, we're asking you to believe that something picked him the hell up, threw him to the floor and snapped his neck, Phil." Dean shifted uncomfortably against the bandages strapping his ribs. "It was the same thing that threw me off that balcony. It's not a spirit and it's not a poltergeist, and someone in your little group of actors called it up. We need to know who."

The doctor shook his head again. "These people have been a part of my life for years—we're all like family. Hell, I've dated Sharon; and Daniel and Geneva are seeing one another, I think. There's nobody in the cast or crew who'd harm a fly! No. Everyone loved Carl. When his wife died, we did a tribute performance for her to help pay for her funeral. No one would kill him, and no one would cause anything to kill him."

The Winchesters exchanged glances, and when Sam spoke, his voice was soft. "Then I guess he sure had one hell of an accident."

The crease between Philip's eyebrows deepened. "Look, I've got to do rounds, and then get to rehearsal by eleven. I'll think about what you guys said, but don't ask me to believe in ghosts or poltergeists."

"Thought-forms," Dean corrected him helpfully.

"Right." The doctor headed for the door, still frowning, then paused. "You're not really with an arts journal, are you?"

Sam smiled at the almost-rhetorical question. "We're brothers," he said. "Hunting the supernatural is kind of our job."

Philip blinked thoughtfully, then turned on his heel and left the room without another word.

As soon as he was gone, Dean reached up to his pillow and pressed the call-button, then took the pulse ox monitor off his finger and began pulling at the tape holding the IV needle in place on the back of his right hand.

"Dean, what are you doing?" Sam asked anxiously.

"Getting out of here, Sam. What does it look like I'm doing?"

"But you heard the doctor—"

"Yeah, yeah, so I'm checking out against medical advice. Not like it's the first time. Throw me my pants, would you? Move it, Nurse Betty—we've got a rehearsal to get to."

-:- -:- -:-

A sheen of cold sweat had glazed Dean's bloodless face by the time he got into the Impala's passenger seat.

"Think we'll have Carl's spirit to deal with now, too?" he asked somewhat breathlessly. "You said you didn't think the exorcism worked."

Sam turned the key in the ignition and pulled away from the hospital, pointing the Impala south on the road back to Burlberg.

"I don't know, but Dean, we've got to be ready to make our move as soon as we figure out what the hell we're dealing with. Man, there's no way you're going to be able to—"

"We pack salt, silver and iron, Sam," Dean interrupted. "Holy water and some of Missouri Moseley's all-purpose spirit repellent, maybe a stake and a machete for good measure, in case that thing physically manifests. More important, we keep our eyes and ears open, because my money's riding on the source being one of the members of this talented little acting group."

"And if none of that works?"

Already more tired than he'd ever care to admit, Dean watched the rows of corn flash by along the side of the highway.

"Then we could both be flying by the seat of our pants, Sammy. I don't recommend it."

-:- -:- -:-

_In Chapter 6, all hell breaks loose._


	6. Chapter 6

_**Disclaimer**: They're still very pretty, and they're still not mine. I'm also pretty sure there will never be enough Sam whumpage to satisfy roxy071288! I hope she enjoys this chapter, anyway--I hope you all do!-- and I promise to try harder next time._

_**A/N: **If you're reading this before April 6, 2007, please vote for "Supernatural" at E!'s "Save One Show" campaign. The website you're on right now won't let me give you the direct link, but it's easy to find--put the word "eonline" after the typical www, and before the typical com, with dots in the usual places. You can vote once a day and help our beloved boys be renewed for a third wonderful season. Once you've reached E!'s website, look for either "Save One Show" or "Watch with Kristin."_

-:- -:- -:-

"Son of a bitch!"

Sam wasn't sure whether Dean's curse had to do with the difficulty he was having getting out of the Impala, or the fact that it was clear from the other cars on the street that the Burlberg Players were already all at the theater by the time the Winchesters reached it.

The brothers came in through the front door, and found rehearsal underway. In fact, when they passed through the curtain which separated the lobby from the house, they saw that everyone except Geneva and Christopher were onstage, most of them wearing costumes.

Dean cursed again. "I thought Philip said they weren't going to be here for another two hours!"

"Daniel must have called an early rehearsal," Sam replied, frowning. "I guess they're not even going to let Carl get cold."

Of the five people onstage, only Daniel and Hallie weren't in costume, both in jeans, both with t-shirts tucked in. Sam noted absently that Hallie was wearing the red macramé belt she'd been working on for the last several days. She was carrying her notebook, closed for once, and apparently had been tapped by Daniel to take over the role of Nanny, while he switched to Carl's role as the butler.

"Why, no, Major Brickley," Hallie said stiffly to Philip, who was seated in an armchair beside the fireplace. "That bottle of wine's been in the cellar for a dog's age, and it hasn't been touched until this very night."

"What's that smell?" Dean whispered suddenly, taking in hesitant sips of air, eyes widening. "Dude, is that rosemary?"

Sam sniffed deeply, ignoring the look Dean shot him. "No, not rosemary, but some other herb. Sage, I think."

"Sage? What the—"

Sharon Palmer came out from backstage through the right wing and spotted them instantly, fingers flying nervously to her throat. She hastened toward them, wringing her hands. "Philip says you think there's really something haunting the theater," she said, voice low and face pale with fright. "Is that true? You think that what that psychic said is true? And that the ghost killed Carl?"

"We think the haunting is entirely separate from whatever else you've got going on here, Ms. Palmer," Dean snapped, eyes everywhere, watching for signs of the entity.

Sharon was trembling as words tumbled thoughtlessly from her mouth. "My God, I can't shut down the production. We open in less than a week—I put everything I have into making this theater a showcase. The governor is supposed to be coming! I'll be ruined if we don't open. Look, we even have Hallie playing a part, and she's no actor, but what else could we do? I know it seems cold, but Carl would be the first to say that the show must go on. Tell me, what else could we do?"

Dean turned his back on Sharon's frantic monologue, and took the shotgun from his jacket's inner pocket. "Sam, backstage or house?"

Mindful of his brother's injuries, Sam chose the seating area, combing quickly through the auditorium and balcony, shotgun at the ready, crucifix and vial of holy water within easy reach, one ear tuned to the ongoing scene-work onstage. Tension was clearly high; Hallie stammered repeatedly, and Daniel seemed on the verge of a meltdown, jumping on every perceived flaw.

"No, no, no—I've told you a thousand times now! Cross upstage of the end table, so you're not blocking Zandra. Hallie, can't you get this?" The director raked his hands dramatically through his hair. "God, if it were possible, I'd just have Geneva play both parts. This is going to be a train-wreck!"

"I'm so sorry, Daniel," Hallie said meekly. "I promise I'll get it."

Sam's search netted nothing except Sharon back in her usual seat, and Hallie's open book-bag nearby in the front row.

Dean came out through the stage-left wing and down the steps, meeting Sam on the main floor where the aisle gave them room to stand and obliquely watch the action onstage.

"Find anything?" Sam breathed.

"Something's sure gearing up," came his brother's tense reply. "Apparently the pressure built up in the pipes in the bathroom, so when Geneva washed her hands, it sprayed all over her. There's water everywhere, back there. I'm thinking that was like a warning shot across the bow. "

Sam nodded. "Whatever's coming, you can feel it in the air, like an electrical charge."

"Yeah, my Spidey-sense sure is tingling," Dean said, frowning as he caught sight of Hallie's book-bag.

"Dean. What?"

A light flickered overhead, and although the actors onstage seemed oblivious, Sharon Palmer vaulted to her feet and quickly moved to rejoin the Winchesters, eyes wide with fear.

"Dammit, Hallie," Daniel swore as the girl paused in their scene, searching her memory for the next line. "We've got to get through this! Just use your script for today, and try to be off-book by tomorrow afternoon."

"I'm sorry, Daniel," she replied. "I'm trying my best."

As Hallie opened her notebook and leafed quickly through it to find the right spot, the lights flickered again throughout the theater. This time all the actors noticed, too. Sam and Dean exchanged apprehensive glances, and Sam reached into the inside pocket of his jacket to wrap long fingers around the silver crucifix he had placed there, just in case. Dean's eyes swept the stage as he took stock of the actors and props, then turned his focus to the rows of seats in the house, again frowning at Hallie's book-bag in the front row.

"Oh my God!" An angry Geneva appeared suddenly from backstage in jeans and a bra, her costume crumpled in her hands and Christopher on her heels, looking terribly apologetic.

Geneva thrust the period dress out in front of her. "It's ruined," she said flatly. "First there was a flood in the bathroom, and then something happened to the dryer so that it overheated. The buttons melted and the zipper is fused, and whatever is in this cheap frou-frou that Hallie used came out burned to a crisp. No way in hell I can wear this, Daniel. She'll have to make me something else."

Backstage, a door slammed, and everyone on the set jumped. Christopher let out a shriek, whirling to look behind him, one hand clapped over his mouth.

"Oh," he said, turning back to them, face pale, adrenaline making his voice tremble. "It was the costume room door. I didn't realize we'd left it open."

Daniel moved to the blonde ingénue's side, taking the costume from her and placing one hand on her bare shoulder. "We'll work something out, sweetheart, and I'm sure you'll look beautiful, regardless of what you're wearing."

"Why would she keep two scripts?" Dean asked randomly, glancing up at the notebook in Hallie's hands, then back down to the identical one plainly visible in her book-bag. Chewing distractedly on his bottom lip, he moved along the front row until he was standing beside the girl's belongings, Sam close behind him.

"Dean, don't touch that," the younger Winchester said uneasily. "Carl was holding it when he got killed."

"It's a book-bag, Sam, not a wolverine. I'm just going to see what—"

"Please leave that alone!" Hallie cried sharply from the stage.

Geneva snatched the costume back from Daniel and threw it down at her feet. "Hallie, if you would just focus on what you're supposed to be doing, this would be a lot easier f everyone."

"Really, Daniel, darling, it's very difficult to work under these conditions," Zandra said, rising leisurely from the sofa. "Are you sure Hallie's up to it?"

Suddenly everyone in the theater company was talking at once, each making a suggestion or complaint except Hallie, who stood as if shell-shocked while the babble of voices rose.

Sam was the only one to see the doorway curtain that separated the right side of the theater from the lobby billow suddenly, as though a giant gust of wind had blown in. He let go of the crucifix and gripped his brother's arm. "Dean, I think something's coming."

A series of soft thuds sounded throughout the house as a dozen or more cushioned seats suddenly dropped into the down position, silencing everyone. There was a dull, booming noise from backstage, causing Christopher to shriek again. Randall rose suddenly to stand beside Zandra, and Daniel drew Geneva to him, while Philip ran to the French doors in the rear wall of the set and leaned out through them, looking toward the dressing rooms.

"I think the toilet just exploded," he announced, stunned. "There's water running out of the bathroom."

Sharon Palmer wailed, dashing up the steps and onto the stage to see for herself. "My God, how do we shut the water off?"

Before anyone could answer her, the three set walls began to ripple, rocking back and forth, taped seams bursting, prop shelves and decorations falling noisily to the floor. This time the women all screamed, Zandra hiding her face against Randall's shoulder and Geneva burrowing into Daniel's shirt-front. Philip crossed the stage in three great strides and took Sharon into his arms protectively, Christopher standing right beside him, leaving Hallie alone in center-stage, shaking her head violently in denial.

"Sam, we've got to get these people out of here!" Dean had started for the steps when there was a roar of noise, like that of a jet engine powering up, just as the sprinkler system overhead activated and water showered down all around them. The massive loading-dock door began to rattle and clang, as though it were being pounded by a hundred hands. More doors slammed backstage, and the right-side set wall toppled suddenly backward into the wing, scattering props from the fireplace mantle everywhere. Sharon and the actors hurried down the steps to the theater's side door, where Christopher pushed futilely at the crash-bar.

"It's locked!" he cried. "It won't open!"

Dean pushed through the group gathered anxiously around the door, lifted his booted foot and kicked savagely at the crash-bar, to no avail. Wrapping one arm tightly around his ribs, he tried again, then waved everyone up the aisle toward the lobby.

"Go out the front!" he ordered. "Can't get out this way. Sam, shag ass!"

The little troupe moved swiftly, but hadn't gotten more than a few steps when all the seats in the theater suddenly began to flap up and down, and a violent river of wind shot down the aisle from the back of the house, driving water so it hit them like stinging needles, stopping them cold.

"Get down, everyone!" Sam shouted above the din. "Stay close together, and keep away from the seats!"

Dean was working his way up the aisle, tucked low, pushing against the howling wind when Sam suddenly realized that Hallie wasn't with them. He looked for her frantically, spotting her still at center-stage, where she stood frozen in horror as lights flickered around her and water drenched the set. The left-side wall pitched forward suddenly, landing propped on the back of the sofa and missing Hallie by inches.

"No!" she screamed, dropping her script to the floor and wrapping her fingers in the red ribbons of her belt, tugging at them in panic. "No, no, no! I didn't want this!"

In an instant the last puzzle piece fell into place, and Sam understood what had happened.

"Dean!" Sam bellowed. "Dean, wait!"

Trusting that his brother heard him, Sam rose from where he knelt and let the wind propel him toward the stage. He vaulted onto it, his hair streaming water into his eyes as he confronted Hallie, standing close but careful not to make physical contact with her, suddenly aware that he had stepped into the eye of the storm. Although the maelstrom swirled dangerously around them, Hallie was dry and untouched, the racket pervading the theater somehow muted here.

As if from far away, Sam heard Dean shout his name anxiously.

"Hallie, you conjured this, didn't you?" he asked her quietly. "You were doing spellwork, and somehow you called this thing here."

Her expression was as haunted as anything he had ever seen. "No, I didn't conjure it," she said, voice tremulous, eyes drowned in sorrow. "I don't know how it got here--I even smudged the whole theater with sage, to try to get rid of it. Two time, Sam, I swear to you. I never intended for this to happen. All I was doing was—"

"What?" Sam urged her to continue. "You were casting spells, I know, but what exactly were you doing? Hallie, it's important that you tell me."

"It's not like I even think spells are real." Hallie's voice was small and lost. "Or I didn't. Not until things started happening."

Sam was staggered by the ramifications. "Then you don't even know what you were doing."

"Oh, please, you have to believe me—all I wanted to do was protect the theater, to protect Daniel. The Players, this show, working beside him...it's all I have, Sam. It's all that I love. And it was like a game, at first, all love potions and luck charms, silly stuff for protection. I used apples and rosemary and vanilla for the love spells, just like the books said. I ga-gave Geneva heather so she'd spurn Daniel's attentions. And I tried poppets—you know, dolls."

Hallie's voice broke, and she looked up at Sam in anguish. He wanted to comfort her, to hold her, give her his warmth and support--knew it would be the wrong move, even just to touch her. Instead, he had to let his eyes speak his compassion, his expression provide her his sympathy, and hope that it was enough.

She saw, and smiled almost wistfully. "It was all simple, natural stuff, nothing that would hurt anyone," she continued. "At first nothing seemed to work, so I just kept trying. It seemed like a way that I could be helpful. You know, give something back to them all, when they've given so much to me. But there were all these interruptions, so—"

"So sometimes you'd start something you didn't finish, and then start something else. Hallie, did you even establish a sacred space? No?"

Sam threw a look over his shoulder, saw Dean crouched at the steps leading up to the stage, drenched, straining to hear, poised to leap to Sam's aid if things got more out of control. Funny, the thought of things getting any more out of control than they already were.

The actors remained huddled in mid-aisle as the mad energy continued to slap the theater seats up and down, continued to blink the lights in a wild parody of Morse code. The loading-dock door rumbled, still battered by an invisible force. A stream of water from the bathroom had made its way across the stage, pouring down the steps and between the footlights and cascading into the orchestra pit. The set's back wall was the only one still standing, and it teetered alarmingly, rocked by gusts of supernaturally charged wind.

"I tried to do everything the way I was supposed to," Hallie murmured. "I went up into the balcony, so no one would see and no one would bother me. But I'd still get interrupted, and sometimes things would get mixed up. I was starting to get sick, and Daniel…all he ever saw was _Geneva_, when I would have done anything for him."

Something about the distress in her voice echoed the anger and jealousy Sam had felt that first night in Geneva's dressing room, and he knew then for a certainty that—intentionally or not—Hallie had conjured the entity manifesting in the Palmer Theater.

From the corner of his eye, Sam saw Dean turn and battle his way against the wind up the aisle to where the actors crowded together. Sam watched as his brother grabbed Daniel's arm and pulled him out of the group, shouted into his face, hauled him down the aisle toward the stage, then pushed him up the steps. Still lashed by wind and water, Dean ducked along the front row until he had reached Hallie's book-bag, where he stopped and looked up expectantly at the trio onstage.

Daniel's expression was an odd mix of terror and excitement as he joined Hallie and Sam in the relative calm that surrounded them. He used a sodden sleeve to wipe the water from his face as he looked at his assistant director in awe.

"Hallie, you did all this?"

"Daniel, I only wanted good things to happen. I swear. I wanted to protect the show." She ducked her head, then met his gaze. "I just wanted you to see me the way I see you, Daniel."

The director licked his lips, gave a short laugh of embarrassment and cast a harried glance at Sam. "I--I care for you very much, Hallie," he said woodenly.

Sam looked at him in dismay, but a faint, hopeful smile touched Hallie's face.

"You do?" she asked, fingers still toying with the dangling ends of her belt.

"Of course I do—I just couldn't tell you."

Around them, the gale's roar seemed to lessen slightly, and Sam saw Dean extract the second notebook from the water-soaked book-bag, open it and peel the wet pages apart, reading intently.

"Tell her now, Daniel!" Sam ordered, keeping one eye on his brother.

"You've been such a wonderful assistant, and I've been fond of you from the beginning. It's only natural that those feelings would grow, the more time we spent together." Daniel was warming to his part, and Sam knew that Hallie would hear what she wanted to hear.

Dean shot him a concerned glance, mouthed "magic" to him, then continued to read. Soggy pages fell apart in his hands as blue ink bled across them, and Dean shook his head as he tried in vain to make out the smeared writing.

"Two nights ago, I heard you in the dressing room with Geneva," Hallie told Daniel. "You were making—you were having—You had asked me to stay late to work with you, but then you were with _her_."

Two nights ago, Sam thought. When the entity had attacked him in Geneva's dressing room. Suddenly aware that he had paid the price for Daniel's thoughtless dalliance, Sam glared at the director, who shrugged sheepishly.

"That was wrong of me," Daniel said by way of apology. "I didn't realize you had stayed."

Hallie looked up at him, her face innocent and trusting, beginning to glow in a way that Sam regretted deeply. The girl would never have heard these words from Daniel if Dean hadn't fed him the lines, but she ate them up as though starved.

"Of course I have to coddle my actors, Hallie," the director continued. "You know what fragile egos they have. I could only hope that you'd be patient with me. You have so much more to offer than Geneva does—how could you think I'd choose her over you?"

Sam winced at the artless lie, then saw Dean's head bend suddenly closer to the notebook he held. The older Winchester dashed a hand across his eyes to clear the water from them, his mouth moving briefly, and Sam saw the light go on in his expression. Dean looked up frantically, just as Hallie finally realized what Daniel was doing.

"You're lying," she said, voice tiny with discovery. "Oh, Daniel. You didn't have to lie to me. Why would you lie?"

The calm space that had encircled them vanished abruptly, and the wind snatched at them, catching the water still raining down from the sprinklers and driving it against them like shot from a pellet gun. There was a tremendous cracking sound from the fly-space above their heads, and all three of the people onstage looked up in horror to see the catwalk begin pitching wildly on the chains which suspended it from the ceiling.

"Sam!" Dean shouted in warning, just as one chain broke loose from its mooring and a corner of that section of catwalk dropped suddenly, the whole thing still dancing spasmodically.

Sam swooped Hallie and Daniel into a wide embrace and herded them toward the lip of the stage, toward Dean, who had dropped the notebook and moved around the orchestra pit to help them. Daniel leaped down swiftly, leaving Hallie and Sam still onstage when another chain holding the catwalk snapped, a section jerking down against the lighting grid and popping loose two Fresnel spotlights which plunged, bomb-like, to the stage below. Sam grabbed at Hallie, jerking her backward to safety as the heavy spots missed them by inches, rebounding in a spray of broken glass lenses onto the house floor and into the pit.

Dean watched in horror as his brother was yanked off his feet by something unseen, torn from Hallie's side and hurled backward into the French doors in the set's last standing wall. The wall collapsed, but Sam ricocheted from it into the side of the heavy couch, clipping his chin hard against the arm, reeling as he struggled to regain his balance. Another Fresnel hurtled down, thrown violently, glancing off Sam's left shoulder blade, slicing through clothing and flesh, causing him to cry out in agony as blood spurted from the wound. The contents of the bookcase, heavy with water, began to fly haphazardly off the shelves, pitched directly at him with the intensity of fastballs, pummeling him, slewing him around with the force of their blows until he stumbled over a raised corner of the rug and sprawled full-length, still battered by the dozens of pieces of set dressing that seemed to propel themselves at him.

Hallie stood screaming, helpless amidst the pandemonium. Dean's frantic attempts to leap onto the stage were hampered by his broken ribs, and he settled for hoisting himself up backward, planting his ass first, then swinging his legs around before hauling himself to his feet.

"Sam!" he shouted, voice rough with dread as his brother dazedly protected his head with his good arm and struggled unsuccessfully to rise, books and detritus from the set striking him from every angle.

Dean dodged two heavy volumes and a candlestick before he swept Hallie up in his arms, feeling it in his ribs, and dumped her unceremoniously off the stage, where she landed in a heap at Daniel's feet.

"Get her belt off!" Dean ordered, ducking as another Fresnel fell from the lighting grid. "Hallie, take your belt off and give it to Daniel, right now!"

They looked at him in stupefaction as Dean withdrew his knife from its sheaf at his side and tossed it to Daniel, who caught it two-handed.

"Do it!" the older Winchester commanded, his tone setting Hallie's fingers flying to unwrap the strands of ribbon from the belt's brass closure. "Daniel, listen to me. I don't think this thing will come after you, because she loves you. Once she gets the belt off, you've got to cut it up. Cut every knot, fast, before this sonofabitch kills us all!"

Daniel still gaped at him, slack-jawed. "But I—"

"Do it!" Dean roared, as Hallie pulled the belt from the loops on her jeans and held it before her, already drenched, water running from it in tiny streams. When Daniel recoiled from it as though it were a venomous snake, Hallie took the knife from him and assiduously began to cut through the knots she had tied into the braids of red ribbon.

Dean turned away quickly and lunged toward Sam, grabbing a fistful of his soaked jacket as his brother finally staggered to his feet. "Come on, we've got to get off the stage!"

There was another tremendous _crack!_ from the fly-space overhead, and a section of the heavy metal catwalk smashed its way earthward past the lighting grid. Dean shoved Sam with all the strength he could marshal, sending his brother flying across the stage and out of danger before flinging himself in the opposite direction, crashing onto the sofa and tipping it over backward, soggy cushions blanketing him as the catwalk landed on the stage amidst a spray of water and a tremendous thunderburst of noise.

Dean felt the agony in his side, but hauled himself up anyway.

"Sam!" he cried, blinking furiously to clear the water from his lashes, shouting over the noise of the wind. "Sammy!"

Suddenly there was a concussive blast, blowing the side door open, billowing the sodden curtains onstage and at the back of the theater outward, booming against the loading-dock door and denting the metal there. Then, as if by magic, the wind died and the sprinkler system shut off. The loading-dock door rattled into silence, the catwalk ceased its St. Vitus dance, books fell from mid-air, and the seats in the auditorium stopped slamming up and down. Stopped dead. Almost, there was silence.

Alert for new trouble, Dean tensed until he saw Hallie place his knife gently on the lip of the stage and wipe the last shreds of red ribbon from her hand.

"It's done," she told him, her voice small and solemn.

Dean nodded terse approval, and the girl turned hesitantly toward Daniel. When she saw the fascination and disgust painted on the director's face, Hallie sank into the nearest seat, buried her own face in her hands and wept.

Dean bent forward, wrapped an arm around his ribs, agonized by the pain there, again unable to draw a decent breath.

"Sam? You good?"

When there was no answer, Dean straightened with a groan, turned to find Sam sprawled face-down amidst the wreck of the set, just beyond the fallen section of catwalk, unmoving. His jacket was already darkened by water, but a darker stain spread out across his left shoulder, and Dean reeled toward him, heart in his throat.

"Sammy?"

Falling to his knees beside his brother, Dean reached out and shook him gently, one hand pressed against the still-bleeding wound on Sam's back, but got no response. He tried again, calling Sam's name more harshly this time, his pain forgotten, overshadowed by rising panic.

"Sam!"

When Sam still did not stir, and Dean's own vision had begun to blacken, he mustered his remaining strength and cried out to the little group of actors just beginning to rise in the middle of the theater aisle.

"Hey! Hey, help! I need a doctor!"

Philip came running.

-:- -:- -:-

_In Chapter 7, explanations and partings. The brothers read one another like the pages of a well-loved book. Or script. _


	7. Chapter 7

_**Disclaimer**: "Supernatural" is not mine. I'm pretty sure Sam and Dean belong to each other. This was written completely for fun. _

_**A/N**: Here's the end. Thanks for sharing with me—I really appreciate it! Special thanks, again, to Sera and Tails for their support and candor, and for their delightful forum, "Paperclips and Peanut M&Ms." My place would be so much tidier if I'd never discovered it! Also, best wishes to Winchester2002 on her thesis--I know it'll turn out great! And a big round of applause to actors everywhere._

_Please focus lots of warm, positive energy on thoughts about the reality of Season Three! If you're reading this before April 6, 2007, please vote for "Supernatural" at E!'s "Save One Show" campaign. The website you're on right now won't let me give you the direct link, but it's easy to find--put the word "eonline" after the typical www, and before the typical com, with dots in the usual places. You can vote once a day and help our beloved boys be renewed for a third wonderful season. Once you've reached E!'s website, look for either "Save One Show" or "Watch with Kristin."_

_Again, thanks for reading!_

-:- -:- -:-

"Dean, I'm fine. Sit down before you fall down," Sam murmured groggily from the examining table. Philip was running a line of sutures along the deep gash where the spotlight had sliced him open, but he'd quickly regained consciousness at the theater, merely stunned by the various blows his body had taken during the maelstrom. The marks and bruises would last for weeks, however, and the shock of blood-loss had tired him considerably. Even so, Sam's practiced mindfulness caught his brother's drawn features and the significant hitch in Dean's breathing.

Dean had propped himself upright against the wall by the door while the doctor worked on Sam, determined to stay alert until he was satisfied that Sam was going to be all right, watching Philip's moves carefully as he ministered to the younger Winchester.

Once Sam had come to and they'd gotten the bleeding under control, Dean's own pain had screamed its way back into his awareness; he'd barely managed to keep on his feet while shepherding the others out of the ruined theater. Sam had walked out under his own power, still too dazed to notice Dean's pinched face or the way he held one arm clamped tightly against his ribs. They'd taken the Impala to the clinic; Dean had insisted on driving, and Philip could only shake his head in stern disapproval before following them in his van, fully expecting they'd run off the road before they'd gone two blocks. Instead, Dean had gotten them safely to their destination and was helping his brother out of the car before the doctor could get his own vehicle parked. Even in pain, they moved as a team, synchronized, no motion wasted. Pilot and wingman.

Now, Philip shot Dean an assessing glance, performing mental triage. "I don't want you in a chair, Dean, I want you back in the hospital," he said darkly, tying off the last stitch and deftly bandaging the wound. "Sam, you can sit up now—take it easy, or you'll open that back up. Dean, you're going to need some more X-rays, so let's head down to the radiology lab. And since everyone's currently breathing and nobody's bleeding anymore, I want some answers. What the hell happened back there at the theater?"

Sam gritted his teeth, cautiously rising from the examining table and shrugging back into his shirt. It was still quite damp, and the clammy coldness made his skin pucker.

He chose his words carefully. "Hallie accidentally brought something into the theater that shouldn't have been there. She was trying to do something that was for your benefit—the benefit of all of you, and the theater—but she made some mistakes, and things went wrong."

"Well, there's an understatement," Dean rasped, pushing himself off the wall with a grimace. "Look, Philip, she was practicing witchcraft. Mostly love spells, because she's hot for Daniel, but she obviously wasn't very good at what she was doing, so everything went to hell and she conjured up that killer spook."

"Like a—what do you call it—a witch's familiar?" Philip asked, struggling with concepts that had no place in the rational world, while keeping a watchful eye on both Winchesters. Dean was swaying slightly, his jaw clenched so tight that from across the room, Philip could see the muscle jump. Sam tried hard not to wince as he worked his way carefully off the exam table.

"More a thought-form, created by the strength and consistency of her feelings, which were all focused on Daniel and on the theater. We think it killed Carl because he accidentally found Hallie's Book of Shadows—her spellbook—when he was looking for her script," Sam said, finally on his feet and quickly at his brother's side. "Dean, come on. Let's get you X-rayed."

He took Dean's elbow, and it was testimony to the older Winchester's exhaustion that he did not pull away, but allowed Sam to lead him out of the examination room and down the hallway toward the clinic's tiny radiology lab. Philip preceded them, turning on lights as he went.

"So you're saying that Hallie _imagined_ this thing into reality?" he asked incredulously.

Sam nodded, their experience in east Texas a fleeting memory. "It wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened. She's deeply in love with Daniel; doing amateur spellwork; taking Echinacea, which is often used as an ingredient to strengthen spells. And since the theater had been a place of violent death, it was kind of easy for her to unintentionally call something up."

"Things just got worse when she started making that belt," Dean added, silently grateful that they had finally arrived at the lab, where Philip immediately set about the business of setting up the equipment.

Sam looked at his brother blankly. "What?"

"Cord magic, Sammy. Also called knot magic--a very powerful form of spellwork. There was a note about it in that book she was keeping, way back in the back. Hallie was making that belt while thinking about Daniel and the play, tying knots in the ribbon, binding the thought-form. Maybe not even realizing she was doing magic. All that emotion, knotted into that maca—macaroni, Macarena, whatever the hell you called it."

A laugh ghosted its way out of Sam's mouth. "Macramé, Dean. That makes perfect sense—she was binding her desire into the belt, and binding the thought-form into the theater. That could be part of why the exorcism didn't work. Plus, she was using red ribbon, and red is the color of love and passion."

"Right, and the magic lasts as long as the knots are tied, which is why they had to be cut. Get away from me—I got it." Dean swatted at Sam's hands and eased his way out of his jacket and outer shirt. The effort was painful and incredibly exhausting, and he allowed the doctor to work the t-shirt up off his ribs to unstrap the water-soaked bandaging there, muttering an oath as the last of it was pulled free.

Sam had to steel himself against the sight of Dean's ribcage, which was bruised a dark and angry purple--knew his own body was as battered and just as colorful. They'd be leaving Burlberg with plenty of souvenirs.

Philip's practiced fingers helped the doctor make a quick assessment, and he caught Sam's eyes, made a face to let him know things could be worse.

"All right, Dean, let's get this done," he said.

-:- -:- -:-

Zandra and Geneva were waiting for them in the clinic's lobby, each in dry clothing and fresh make-up, hair casually perfect, looking for all the world as though nothing had happened.

"We came to make sure you were all right," Geneva told them, her voice uncertain as she searched Sam's face.

"We're fine," he assured her gently, and she came to him, pressing her cheek against his shirt. Awkwardly he put his good arm around her, avoiding Dean's mocking glance.

Zandra gave the older Winchester an appraising once-over, shaking her head slightly as she finally moved toward him.

"So, that black eye," she said, a corner of her mouth lifted. "Got it hunting a werewolf, huh? Suddenly that doesn't sound quite so outrageous."

Dean returned her grin, but remained silent.

"So tell me, what kind of story could possibly explain what happened at the theater today?" she asked.

"Now, Zandra, an experienced actress like you knows you've just got to spin it a little," he replied cheekily. "Freak tornado, maybe?"

Her eyes narrowed briefly as she worked through the scenario. "A tornado blew into the theater and destroyed it from the inside. Leaving the outside untouched. A tornado that nobody else but us saw or heard, although it was the middle of the day, and that didn't touch down anywhere else. Just vanished." She laughed shakily. "Okay, Hat-Trick, I think I'm not going to ask any more questions. Must've been a tornado. You got that, Philip?"

The doctor nodded. "I don't know what we'd say otherwise—a tornado makes just as much sense as anything else. You and Geneva spread the word to Randall and Daniel and Topher, and I'll tell Sharon." He paused, glancing from Dean to Sam. "And Hallie."

"I'll tell Hallie," Geneva murmured, still pressing herself to Sam's chest. "I offered to help her get off-book, so we're meeting tonight to run over her lines and blocking."

"You're going to help--?" Sam was briefly sidelined by the ingenue's kind gesture.

She nodded against him. "Hallie's not going to get through this show without some coaching, Sam, and we're just going to do the best we can. I've got some tricks I think she can use. Thank God she doesn't have many lines with Daniel. That'll make it easier for her."

"So, you're still doing the play." From the look on Dean's face, Sam thought they might as well have told him they were all turning into frogs at midnight. Actually, maybe frogs was easier to comprehend.

"Of course we're still doing the play, darling." Zandra seemed surprised by his surprise. "Sharon's already lined things up with the high school--she and Daniel are over there right now, trying to figure out what to do about the set."

The auburn-haired actress reached up to plant a light kiss on Dean's cheek, squeezing his arm gently before turning to Geneva and tugging at her sleeve.

"Let's go, honey, and let these handsome young men--well, let's let them get back to, er, writing that _article_ they came here for." She smiled again at Dean, who winked back.

Reluctantly, Geneva pulled away from Sam, looking up at him, expectant expression falling when he made no move to draw her back in.

"All right, Mom," she said. "I promised Topher I'd call him, and Dad's probably waiting on dinner. Goodbye, Sam."

"Take care, Dean. Sam." Zandra gave Dean another appraising look, eyes twinkling. "Mmm, Hat-Trick," she breathed. "Outrageous!"

Then she and Geneva made their exits.

Sam barked a laugh, moved so Dean had no choice but to meet his teasing gaze. "'Mom'?" he said smugly.

Dean looked thunderstruck, turning to Philip for an explanation.

"'Dad'?" he asked in disbelief.

The doctor shrugged helplessly. "It's a little town. Half the cast is related to one another. Geneva and Zandra and—" He paused, obviously enjoying the moment.

"And?" Dean demanded, and Philip grinned.

"Randall. The three of them, they're like the Barrymores of Burlberg. I'm sorry—I thought you knew. Randall and Zandra have been happily married for decades, although how he puts up with her flirting is beyond me. It's her shtick--she hits on everyone, but she's all talk, and everybody knows it. Geneva—well, that apple didn't fall far from the tree. And Topher is Randall's sister's son."

Sam watched Dean work tiredly on that one for a moment before coming to the rescue. "Geneva's cousin," he said.

"But they all have different last names," Dean protested.

"Probably stage names, Dean," Sam replied, and Philip nodded in affirmation. "Lots of theater people use them."

He thought for a moment that Dean wasn't going to let it go, but then his brother dropped his head in disgusted defeat.

"Gah," Dean said derisively. "Actors!"

-:- -:- -:-

Philip promised to check on Hallie later that evening, and encourage her to get some counseling for the trauma she had experienced.

"Will she be all right?" Sam asked, uncomfortable with leaving the girl alone after everything that had happened.

"It's too early to tell what the gossip might become," Philip replied. "The Players will support her--she's got Geneva on her side, and that's pretty major--but in a small town like this one, everyone else will either circle the wagons around her, or drive her out. I guess we'll have to wait and see."

"Well, I'm not waiting," Dean growled. "C'mon, Sam, let's hit the road. Catch a few hours' sleep, and then I want this place way past the rear-view mirror."

"You both could use a couple of _days_' rest," the doctor said. "Sam, if I can't convince Dean, maybe I can convince you—he needs to be in a hospital, just for observation, and it might not be a bad idea for you to be there, too."

One look at the stubborn set of Dean's jaw told Sam everything he needed to know, so he reached out to shake Philip's hand in farewell.

"I appreciate everything you've done for us, but we'll be fine. Please just see to it that Hallie gets taken care of, too."

"All right, Drama Boy, come on." Dean nodded his thanks and goodbye to Philip as he gingerly extracted the car keys from his jacket pocket and handed them to Sam. "Let's get out of here."

-:- -:- -:-

From the street, the Palmer Theater looked stately and beautiful, granite gleaming red and orange in the late afternoon light. Sam pulled into the alley, where the door had been blown free from its lock, and the Winchesters made their way cautiously back inside.

The interior of the building was in ruins, water still dripping from the sprinkler system, pooling in the orchestra pit and saturating the seats and carpeting, the set utterly destroyed, flotsam from it and from backstage blown everywhere. The beam of Sam's flashlight caught Hallie's book-bag and the notebook she had used to record her spellwork, still in the front row where Dean had left them. Sam picked up the notebook without hesitation, wiping water off the plastic cover with his sleeve and opening it to the first page.

"Sam."

"No, it's all right, Dean." Sam aimed his flashlight out into the darkness of the auditorium, training it on random spots, knowing in his soul that whatever evil had manifested at the Parker had disappeared. "It's gone. You can just feel that that thing is gone."

So were Hallie's spells, the soaked pages on which she'd written them dissolving in smears of blue ink, not a single word legible.

"I think it'll be a long time before she tries witchcraft again," Sam murmured. "Maybe before she tries anything again. Dean, this thought-form—it was malevolent, and violent, but it was created out of love. How can that happen?"

"I don't know, Sammy," Dean replied, hearing the discomfort in his brother's voice, leery of where the conversation might turn. "It was misguided love. Maybe that made the difference."

"But Hallie never wanted to hurt anybody, not even Geneva. She just wanted Daniel to pay her some attention, to recognize her worth. It wasn't really her fault."

"Come on, Sam, it was totally her fault. She wanted him to love her. That kind of chick doesn't know when to stop—she'd have just kept trying bigger and nastier magic until she found something that worked."

Sam huffed a laugh. "Yeah, and think how _that_ would've turned out, considering what she conjured without even trying. Man, I don't get it, Dean. So much evil in that thing, coming out of someone so gentle and innocent."

_Here it comes_, Dean thought. _Turn it. Take the bullet and turn it._

"So maybe the place is cursed, after all, Sam. Destroyed once by fire, then by flood." He tapped a booted foot against the soggy carpet, raising an eyebrow at the water that squelched out of it. "What's next, plague of locusts? I wouldn't mind taking a wrecking-ball to it myself."

Sam snorted. "Now who's being overdramatic? It's not the theater that hurt anybody."

"Whatever."

"No, not 'whatever.' Dean, nothing happened here that's really that different from anything else that's happened to us. It's how we live, what we do. It's what we deal with."

Dean's face darkened, and he cut a fierce look at his younger brother.

"What? Dean, what?" Sam extended his arms from his sides, regretting the move instantly as the stitches in his shoulder pulled and he grimaced in pain.

"That," Dean snapped. "That right there is what's different."

"The stitches? Dean, I've been hurt worse than this before, and you know it. Hell, last year in Michigan, I—"

Sam stopped short, seeing the muscle in Dean's jaw flicker, a light dawning.

"You think this shouldn't have happened," he said, indicating his arm, the accusation thick in his tone. "You think I was being careless."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa—I never said that!"

"No, but you meant it, Dean," Sam's voice coarsened with anger. "You think that I—"

"You're right, Sammy, it shouldn't have happened." Dean raised his own voice, met Sam's glare with one its equal, held it for just a moment before shaking his head and looking away. "But you weren't the one who was careless. It was me."

Sam shut his mouth with a snap, searching his brother's face, at last seeing the failure, the self-condemnation there.

"Oh, wow," he said finally. "Dean."

Dean shrugged, ignoring the pain that flared across his ribs. "I screwed up, Sammy. This whole gig. I told you nothing bad was ever going to happen to you, so long as I was around, and look at you, man. That sonofabitch thing screwed around with your head, nearly ganked me, then came back to finish the job on you. All of this—" he swept a hand at the theater, this time clenching his teeth against the pain, breath hissing through them. "What happened to Carl, what happened to you…man, I could've stopped it, but I got careless. I fucked up."

"Dean, what are you talking about?" Sam's voice had softened. "This wasn't your fault."

"Sure it was, Sam. I didn't stay sharp, and you paid the price." Dean forced himself to meet his brother's gaze again, let the apology bleed through his eyes, saw the answering sorrow and acceptance on Sam's face.

_Oh, Sammy_, he thought sadly. _All it takes is a little truth to spin that freaky, self-destructive brain of yours. And the truth is, I did fail you. Man, you can't forgive me for that. Please don't forgive me for that. You know I can't._

Sam read his brother's earnest expression carefully, saw the honesty reflected there, recognized the naked self-recrimination Dean had worn far too often since their father's death. Knew Dean opening himself up was an overt attempt at distraction—although rare, it wasn't the first time he'd done it—but Sam loved him for it. Loved him even more for Dean's grim determination to protect his brother at all costs, even the cost of his own pride, the cost of his own life.

_The only price I can't pay is losing you, Dean_, he thought tenderly. _Please don't ever make me do that._

"Dean, I told you before, man—it will never be your fault. It's not your responsibility. You're just one person. You can't save me."

"Like hell I can't," Dean replied fiercely. "I'm going to do it, Sam, I swear to you. I _swear_ to you."

They were quiet for a moment, and when he finally spoke, Sam's voice was gentle, sincere and exhausted. "All right, Dean. And thank you. But maybe we can finish up here first, and then get some sleep before you try to save me again, okay? Because I feel like crap, and you look like crap, and right now I just want to lose round one to a pillow."

A smile tugged at Dean's mouth. "Yeah, all right, I think that's a loss I could accept. Come on, give me the EMF and let's get this job the hell over."

-:- -:- -:-

As one, they scoured the theater for any remaining trace of the thought-form, their teamwork practiced and seamless and sure, perfected through hundreds of performances together. Venues and scripts and supporting casts changed rapidly in their lives, but the brothers knew their roles—had them nailed, down pat—and their work together was a seasoned, flawless invariable.

"It's clean," Sam said finally, confirming what he'd said an hour before. "There's nothing here that will hurt anyone any more."

"What about them?" Dean asked, jerking his head at the stage.

Sam followed his gaze, forehead wrinkling as he made his decision. "Like I said, there's nothing here now that means anyone any harm. Let's get out of here."

"I guess it's true, then," Dean said, ushering his brother out of the theater and into the alley.

"What's that?"

"The show must go on."

With a final look back into the black void, Dean let the door swing closed behind them.

-:- -:- -:-

_On the stage, in the darkness, a tiny circle of light floated above the water-logged remains of the sofa, hovering there. Amidst the soft sounds of water dripping randomly from the pipes overhead, a young girl's voice sighed like a fond memory._

"_Jerrrrrryyyyy."_

_A second orb wafted close, as though blown by a gentle spring zephyr, joining the first, both moving together in a lazy, delicate spiral across the stage._

"_Luannnnne," a boy's voice whispered in loving reply._

_In the blackness of the theater, the circles of light continued to dance. _

**Curtain**


End file.
